Graphic Design School Blog

It’s no secret that when it comes to advertising products, most companies just take a simplistic and simple approach to make their product known. However, there are times when a more stylistic and glamorous concept is needed; something that will awe the viewers and attract them to the item at hand. Learn how to use effects at hand to give your ad that certain, “Je ne sais quoi…“

Author: Jonathan Sipkema

Jonathan Sipkema is a young graphic designer form The Netherlands who loves Salvator Dali and J.R.R. Tolkien. More work can be seen on his Deviant Art page: http://gcjo182.deviantart.com/

Step 1:

The Background Layer

For this tutorial Im using Photoshop CS4, any version of Photoshop should do the job. Certain tools may be displayed differently however.

To start, you first need to create an empty .PSD document, just choose the A5 format in the preset drop-down menu under international paper.

You can start by making the background color dark grey with the pain-bucket tool.

After that’s done, it’s time to add the gradient.

Just add a new layer on top of the background layer.

Now right-click the Paint-bucket and click on the gradient icon to select the gradient tool.

Now before you are going to choose and edit your gradient, make the foreground color black (#000000).

Now click on the gradient in the top left corner to choose your gradient. Choose the second one, in which a black to transparent gradient is displayed.

After choosing the gradient, put it in the blank layer by clicking in the bottom of the screen and releasing your mouse button after dragging your cursor up to the top.

Now you can change the opacity a bit to make the color of the background as dark as you like.

Step 2:

Now I found this image here: http://bestmobile.pl/images/news/LG_shine_KE970_2.jpg picture of the LG Shine on the internet.

Just right click and copy it, then paste (Ctrl+v) it into the .PSD file

and select the polygonal lasso tool.

We are going to cut out the phone and erase the white background, the reason I choose this tool for that is that the phone doesn’t display many curves in the picture.

Click around the phone to select it with the tool, try to select short lines after each other when you reach a curve. You will probably get this:

Now hit the right mouse button inside the phone and select layer via cut, after this you can delete the layer beneath the new one because that will contain the white background of the phone.

Step 3:

Now I’d like add some contrast to the phone, and a bit darker color.

To do this, simply select the Fx icon in the bottom of the layers bar. And select Color overlay.

Now choose black as your overlay color and choose soft-light as your blend mode.

You can also add a nice dark glow behind it by selecting Outer Glow, again choose black as your color, and choose 75% as opacity, Normal as blend mode, 125 as your size and 0 for spread.

Step 4:

After this, we’re going to add a little effect to the image. Add a new layer first.

When you add a new layer, you can name it by double clicking it.

I downloaded this brush from deviantart:

http://ianhall.deviantart.com/art/Spray-Paint-Brush-Set-1-61479523

Download this brush

Open up this brush, by clicking the brush tool > the arrow in the top left corner next to your brush preview, and then the right arrow on the side of the just appeared screen. Choose load brushes and load the Paint Brush by Ianhall.

Now add some white brushes on the background of the phone, and fool around with it a little bit, until you get the right result.

Step 5:

Next we’re going to draw a few circular shape behind the phone, do this in a new layer, and after drawing a few shapes with the ellipse tool. (make them black)

select all of the new layers, you do this by clicking the top layer, holding shift, click the bottom layer and release shift. Now right-click them and choose merge layers.

After this I made a pattern file, you can try making it, but you can also download it at http://www.jonathansipkema.com/pattern.png. If you want to try to make a pattern yourself, make sure to choose 179×179 as the size.

After making or opening the pattern, choose Edit > Define pattern.

Now select the circular shapes that you made and add a pattern overlay (click the Fx icon again)

You can make the stripes as big and small as you want by changing the scale, by I would choose 25%.

Now add another layer and merge it with the layer including the circular shapes.

After this put the final layer in Soft Light as a blend mode.

Step 6:

Now I found this image on the internet: http://www.diamondvues.com/archives/davinci diamond-1.gif

The handy thing is that it is already cutout, so you don’t have to do that anymore.

Just open it in photoshop, select the right diamond (not the top view) and paste it to the LGShine file.

Now after this, I just played around a little bit, copy them a view times.

Now rotate them and change the size using Ctrl/⌘ + T.

When you think its finished, open up the Fx panel by clicking the icon again.

Now put in an inner glow (only change the color to white),

an outer glow of size 62 (opacity 75%, blend mode normal)

and a black color overlay with Soft Light as a blend mode.

You will finally get something like this:

Step 7:

Now download this image (www.jonathansipkema.com/smoke.jpg)

Open it, cut it,

and copy it into the LG Shine document.

Now rotate and place it in a nice position.

After that change the blend mode from normal to screen.

You will get this effect.

What is displayed in the image too, is that I duplicated the layer, changed the size and position a bit, and selected the outer line of the phones’ screen. Now cut this part and it will look like the smoke is displayed on the phone.

Step one:

Copy the layer (Ctrl/⌘ + J)

Step two:

put the layer in front of the phone.

Step three:

Rotate and transform it.

Step four:

Select the outlines with the poly tool.

What I did too, was that I used this brush: http://ryoku15.deviantart.com/art/Brush-Set-Clouds-v1-24237782

To add some clouds to the picture, you can put them in any place that you’d like. But make sure to put them in a new layer.

Step 8:

Now the next part is what kind of makes the whole picture.

Open a new .PSD file (A5 format again)

And start by typing one “mines” and two “spaces”

Example:

After making a big line, select the brush tool and click once on the line, you will get a notice, click yes.

Now click Edit > Transform > Rotate 90 Degrees CW

Now click Ctrl/⌘ + T and select the warp mode next to the stop sign in the top of the screen.

Now click in the top of the line and start dragging parts of it.

You will finally end up this something like this:

Step 9:

Now cut and copy it into the document,

You can make some different ones and rotate them a bit till you get a nice end result.

End result:

Voila!