Photoshop for Design: Adding a Title & Layer Styles

Topics covered in this Photoshop tutorial:

Creating a File with Photo & Text, Adding Effects: Stroke & Outer Glow, Fill vs. Opacity, Editing a Gradient & Saving a Gradient Preset for Later Use

Exercise Preview

Photo from Engin_Akyurt on Pixabay

Exercise Overview

In this exercise you’ll start designing a magazine ad. The concepts will apply to anything you can design in Photoshop (web, print, etc.).

Creating the Properly Sized Document

1. Go to File > New.

2. At the top, click the Print tab.

   • Click once on the Letter (8.5 x 11 in @ 300 ppi) preset.
   • On the right of the window set Color Mode to CMYK Color.
   • Set Background Contents to Black.
3. Click Create.

4. Do a File > Save As and set the following:

   • Set Format (Mac) or Save as type (Windows) to Photoshop.
   • Navigate into the Photoshop Class folder.
   • Name it yourname-magazine ad.psd and hit Save.

Placing the Main Photo

1. Choose the Move tool .
2. Go to File > Place Embedded.
3. In the Photoshop Class folder, double–click on 6B Model.jpg to choose it.

4. In the Options bar set the following position and size:

   • W & H: 92%
   • X: 1444 px
   • Y: 2050 px

5. Double–click inside the image to accept the size/position.

Adding the Main Title Text

1. In the Tools panel, choose the Horizontal Type tool .

2. In the Options bar:

   • Set size to 150 pt
   • Click the Center text button .

   • Click the color swatch (shown below):

     

   • In the color picker that opens, set it to #b79ee9 and click OK.

3. Click in the middle of the photo and type VIBE in all capital letters.
4. Choose the Move tool .
5. In the Options bar notice the alignment buttons are grayed out.
6. Choose Select > All.

7. In the Options bar, click the Align horizontal centers button .

   Now the type should be perfectly centered horizontally in the photo.

8. Press Cmd–D (Mac) or Ctrl–D (Windows) to deselect.

9. In the Layers panel, double–click on the layer thumbnail to the left of the VIBE layer name.

   This is a quick way to select the type in the image (so it’s highlighted).

10. In the Options bar choose a narrow/condensed font that’s bold (thick letters) similar to the one shown below, such as Arial Narrow Bold.

    

11. In the Properties panel, set tracking to 80 (to add space between the letters).

12. In the Options bar hover over the size icon so you see this cursor and drag right/left to size the type so it looks about like this (ours ended up around 220 pt):

    

13. Choose the Move tool .

14. Hold Shift (so it doesn’t move side to side) and drag the VIBE text up/down so it’s positioned below the chin about like this:

    

Adding a Stroke Effect & Changing Fill Opacity

1. In the Layers panel make sure the VIBE layer is still selected.

2. At the bottom of the Layers panel, click the Add a layer style button and from the menu, choose Stroke.​

3. Set the following:

   • Size: 13 px
   • Position: Outside
   • Fill Type: Gradient
   • To the right of the Gradient thumbnail click the down arrow.
   • In the panel that opens, expand the Purples folder, and double–click on the 4th gradient (in the top row) Purple_04. If you pause a moment over it, the name appears.
   • Angle: -63°

   Click OK.

4. Near the top right of the Layers panel, hover over Fill and the cursor will turn into a hand slider . Drag left or right to adjust the value.

   Notice how the purple text fill becomes partially transparent, but the effect (in this case stroke) is not affected.

5. Set Fill to 0% so you only have the stroke, and the type fill is fully see-through.

Editing a Gradient & Saving a Gradient Preset for Later Use

1. In the Layers panel, double–click on Stroke under the VIBE layer.

2. To edit the gradient, click on the gradient thumbnail (the color bar, not the arrow next to it).

   You should now be in the Gradient Editor window.

3. At the bottom of the window is a preview of the gradient.

   • Below the preview are color stops which define the color.
   • Above the preview are opacity stops which define the opacity.

4. On the bottom left of the gradient preview, double-click on the color stop .

   Set the color to #e9a5a5 and click OK.

5. On the bottom right of the gradient preview, double-click on the color stop .

   Set the color to #aea2db and click OK.

6. Below the gradient preview, hover over the area and when you see a hand cursor click to add a new color stop (as shown below):

   

7. With the middle color stop still selected, set Location to 50% (at the bottom of the window) so it’s perfectly in the middle of the other 2 color stops.

8. Double-click on the new middle color stop .

   Set the color to #65c0e0 and click OK.

9. We want the gradient to get partially transparent on the right, so at the top right above the gradient preview click once on the opacity stop to select it.

   At the bottom of the window set Opacity to 40%.

10. We’ll want to use this gradient again. To save it do the following:

    • In the middle of the window set Name to yourname-VIBE
    • To the right of click New.

11. Click OK to close the Gradient Editor window.

    Keep the Layer Style window open, we’re not done here yet.

Adding an Outer Glow

1. You should still be in the Layer Style window. If not, in the Layers panel, double–click on Stroke under the VIBE layer.

2. On the left side of the window, click on the word Outer Glow (click on the word, not just the checkbox).

   This should have added a glow, and you should see the Outer Glow settings on the right side of the window.

3. Set Opacity to 30%

4. Click the color swatch as shown below:

   

   In the color picker that appears set it to #e7a4a4 and click OK once.

5. Continue setting the following:

   • Size: 40 px (you may not really see it yet because the stroke is covering it)
   • Spread: 60% (now you should see the glow)
   • To the right of Contour, click the down arrow to the right of the thumbnail.
   • In the pop-up panel double–click the 2nd icon in the top row.
   • Notice in the image how the glow has formed into more of an outline. Interesting!

6. Click OK.

7. We’ll do more with this poster in the next exercise, but we’re done for now. Save and close the file.