Making greeting cards with Photoshop elements

Spring Festival has passed, the first day of the New Year again, we teach you to use Photoshop elements to produce a Chinese traditional characteristics of the spring greeting card.

The effect of the works is shown in Figure 1. Friends receive this beaming greeting card in this cold winter will certainly feel "hot" warmth. The end of the article provides a. psd file for everyone to download for reference.

Photoshop Elements software is the software that Adobe specializes in digital photos, and its operating interface and functions are no different from Photoshop, and we will find some differences in the process of making this example.

As a function of "filter", "effect", "Layer style", Photoshop elements has put forward the concept of "out-of-the-box template", we can watch the preset effect to choose whether to add these effects. In the past, the filter effect in Photoshop is only to understand the effects of text to imagine their real picture, and Photoshop elements template significantly improve the efficiency of the designer, this good software when you use it will certainly like it.

Figure 1

Production process:

First, background production

1. Open Photoshop Elements Create a new file with a size of 300*500 pixels and a white background.

2. Select the Gradient tool in the toolbox, then enter the Fade Settings dialog to adjust the color, select an effect in the preset window, and then modify the last color on the color rails to change it to a lighter color than the middle one (Figure 2).

Figure 2

3. Back to the main interface, add gradients to the background image, add color gradient direction is the line from the lower edge of the top edge pull to Figure 3 effect.

Figure 3

4. Use the Brush tool, select the "Spray Gun soft edge circle" for 200 of the brush (Figure 4), the color of the brush set to white, and then in the gradient color of the background of the upper part of the brush some strokes effect, the overall effect of the background changes (Figure 5).

Figure 4

Figure 5

5. Next select the Type tool, enter a "spring" word, the font is "Chinese Xingkai", color is light red, the text size is set to "500" pixel (Figure 6). Put the word "spring" in the upper-left part of the background picture, the top of the text slightly beyond the border, make a little abstract effect. Then reduce the transparency of the text (10%) until you can see the effect of the text vaguely.

Figure 6

6. Under the Layers menu, select the merge down command to synthesize text and background images into a single picture. The following opens the Filter dialog box, and then the "lens halo" effect under Render is selected in the Drop-down menu to add some light effects to the background image, while Photoshop elements provides a preset diagram of the effect, and we can see the effect of applying the lens flare in advance. Set the position and range of the glow in the Lens Flare Settings dialog box (Figure 7).

Figure 7

Finally we get the background image effect as shown in Figure 8.

Figure 8

Second, add text

1. Select the Type tool to enter a "monkey" word, the font for "Chinese Xingkai", the size of "60" point, the color is red.

2. Select a custom Shape tool in the toolbox, select a good-looking graphic (Figure 9), set the effect of the graphic in the layer style, select Neon in the Drop-down menu, and then select the effect of a neon light in the preset effects chart list. Next, add the graphic to the effect of making a text border around the "monkey" word.

Figure 9

3. Select the "monkey" word this layer and then open the "Layer style" settings panel, we give the text to add a simple relief effect appears to be a three-dimensional formal. Select Bevel in the Drop-down menu and find

Simple embossed simply by double-clicking the mouse in the Effect preset window or by selecting the Apply button applies the effect (Figure 10) to the text.

Figure 10

4. Then select the Text tool to add a New Year blessing words, entered the greeting, the font set text for the "Chinese script", color red, the size of "30" point. Select text effects in the Effects dialog box to add some effect to the text. Here we select "Outer glow" under the Layer Style Setup Panel, and then select the Blue semitransparent effect application (Figure 11).

Figure 11

Third, the production pour "fu"

Spring Festival Everyone is of course hope that "blessing", we on the card to make a traditional "fu" auspicious symbol for greeting cards to add a traditional festive meaning.

1. Select the Rectangle tool and then select Square in the Rectangle Options Setting box, where we draw a square shape (Figure 12).

Figure 12

2. The fill color of the square is in red, then use the Arrow tool to select the rotation 90 degrees to make a slanted figure (Figure 13).

Figure 13

3. The following gives the graphic border like a true "fu" the edge of the painting the same effect, in the "Layers" Panel select the layer of the rectangle, click the right mouse button in the menu to select "Simplified layer" (Figure 14), now we can stroke the graph.

Figure 14

4. Under the Edit menu, select the Stroke option, and then set the width of the edge to 4 pixel color white (Figure 15).

Figure 15

5. Add a border with a red color by following the stroke method described above.

6. The next step is to use the Text tool to enter the word "FU" color yellow, with the arrow tool to rotate the text 180 degrees upside down. The word "fu" like the word "monkey" to add a simple relief effect, appear stereo real (Figure 16).

Figure 16

Iv. Add paper-cut painting

If you add a bit of Chinese traditional paper-cut to the greeting card, it will make more sense, we'll find a paper-cut picture of the monkey and open it in Photoshop elements (Figure 17).

Figure 17

Use the Magic Wand tool to remove the white background of a picture, and then open the Filters panel select the "Contour" under the "stylized" filter to apply to the paper-cut painting, when the effect of the screen is changed as shown in Figure 18.

Figure 18

Lowering the layer's opacity to 30% makes the effect less eye-catching for the entire picture.

Five, greeting card border

Finally, we add a border effect to the greeting card, select "Picture frame" in the Drop-down menu of the effect panel, and we apply the "spray shape frame" effect (Figure 19). Apply a frame effect all of the layers will be merged into one layer.

Figure 19

Save and release of greeting cards

The greeting card is finished, do you feel satisfied? You can save the PSD's source files as you would in Photoshop, and you can change them at any time, or immediately generate JPG or GIF files. At the same time, you can also print the greeting card, make it into a card and give it to your friends. If you want to send it to a friend immediately as an e-mail message, select Attach to e-mail directly under the File menu, and then in the attach to E-mail dialog box, you can choose to convert the greeting card to a JPG file by using the elements Photoshop, or " Send As-is picture, start the default e-mail program and use the greeting card as a message attachment (Figure 13). psd File Download

Figure 20