JWG PSP7 Tutorials:
Banners for Beginners
Banners and Logos
This is a quick introduction to making simple banners, logos, calling cards etc. As you follow more tutorials, and learn more about the effects that can be achieved within PSP itself, and also by using plugins and filters, you will be able to produce ever more sophisticated graphics!
Banners
The standard banner size is 480 x 68 pixels, but you can vary this to suit your needs. I personally find 68 pixels a bit narrow, and am more inclined to make banners which are in the region of 350-450x 80-120 pixels. As I say, this is very much a personal preference, or is dictated by the requirements of your clients, if you are making custom graphics for others.
Open a new image at your desired size as shown below.
White or transparent is a good starting point as it is easy to change the colour to suit. Go to Layers on the Menu and click on New Raster Layer.
You can name the layer if you wish in the dialog box that comes up. (this can be useful in the future when you are working with lots of layers, and need to know which is which). Otherwise, accept the default settings in the box and click OK. We are now going to flood fill our banner with a gradient to add interest. Select your gradient as shown in the screenshots below:
The other options shown are for adding a solid colour, and adding a pattern which you may wish to do instead of a gradient. A similar principle applies to selecting a texture too. Today, however we are adding a gradient: So, after you have clicked on the little box marked gradient, this box appears:
You will see the name of the gradient has come up, and the last used gradient is displayed. As you put your mouse over the middle of the box, (not on the little black arrow) it turns into an eye dropper
which you will find on the tool bar down the left of your screen. (Hover your mouse over each tool and the little tool tip comes up telling you what it is). Click the eye dropper and this dialog box opens.
Click on the little arrow at the side of the box showing the gradient:
and this box opens up:
You can scroll up and down this box until you find a gradient you like, and then click on it. (You can change the angle and type of gradient by playing around in the gradient dialog box). When you are happy with your choice, click OK, and the dialog box closes..
Click on the flood fill tool on the tool bar at the side of the screen
The mouse turns into a little watering can type of symbol. Hover this over your image and right mouse click for a background gradient which we have used here.
(If we had used the box above it would be a foreground gradient and you would need to left mouse click). Thus your chosen gradient fills your image.
You may feel the colour is a bit bright and you can reduce the opacity of the layer by going to your Layer Palette, (if it is not showing, toggle on the top tool bar as shown)
Click on Layer1 (or whatever you have named it)
Click where shown by the arrow and slowly drag your mouse across to the left. You will see the layer opacity reducing from 100%. Stop when you are happy with the new colour. Now, go to Layers again and add a New Raster Layer as before. This is going to be our text layer. Go to the tool bar and click on the big letter A underneath the paint can. The mouse turns into a cross with a letter A next to it. This is the Text Tool, and if you click in your image, the Text Entry dialog box opens.
Choose your font, size, colour etc. Notice that you have the same styles and textures boxes in the dialog box as you do on the main screen.
This means that you can fill your text with different gradients, patterns etc, as well as plain colours. Decide if you want bold/italic/underlined...and center align the text. It usually looks better that way. Make sure Floating and Antialias are checked, and click OK.
The text is now selected, and you can go to Effects: 3D Effects and click on Inner Bevel:
Pick a bevel of your choice from the presets available, or play around with the settings in the dialog box if you prefer
Click OK when you are happy. With the text still selected, go to 3D Effects: Drop Shadow: and apply a drop shadow that you like. Again you can play around with the settings until it looks right in the preview window. Also in the Effects menu you will see Sharpen. Go to that, click on it and click on Sharpen. This is very useful for sharpening up text, pictures, logos, and is something you should always do after resizing images. Then click on Selections:Select None, and your text is finished. You can add more layers and add picture tubes etc to your banner if you wish. When you have finished, go to Layers, Merge All (Flatten)
Now you can add a border if you like. Go to Image: Add Borders:
10 gives you a standard border, but you can change the size to suit your graphic. If you have a small logo, button etc, you would only want 5 or less. if you have a large picture, you might want to go up to 20. Your image then has a border filled with whatever your background colour is. If you just want a plain coloured border, set your background colour first. However, if you want to jazz it up a little, Use your Magic Wand to select the border only.
I then added a gradient fill to the border only, exactly as we did for the background, but just click inside the selected border. With the border still selected: I went to Effects: Texture Effects and scrolled down to Texture. This dialog box appears:
If you click on the little arrow at the side of the texture box on the left, all the textures that you have installed are available for you. Click on the one you want, and that is applied over your gradient. Then back to Effects:3D Effects, and apply in turn an inner bevel, and an outer bevel. Effects:Sharpen, and finally Selections: Select None.
Your banner is now finished.........
Calling Cards
Start with an image of 250x150 pixels, and when you add your border, fill it with the same gradient/pattern etc that you used for the background.
Logos
Choose your size according to what you need the logo/button for, and follow the above guidelines.
Plugins and Filters
I have shown you what you can do using PSP itself, but I personally use Plugins and Filters to achieve interesting effects on text and borders particularly. Click 1 and 2 to find out about Plugins and Filters and how to install them.
Gradients
You may want to add more gradients and presets for your bevels and so on, to give you more choice. Click here for a good source of gradients. NB: As www.mahoganys.com is temporarily off-line, I am now offering a selection of mahoganys gradients for download. I will of course remove them immediately, if and when, her site reappears.
Fonts
You can use all sorts of fancy fonts for your logos and banners, to suit the occasion.
If you would like some help in installing new fonts, visit my fonts install tutorial
Check out fonts resources for links to some fonts sites too...
More
See my other psp tutorials on adding sparkles, tubes etc, if you want to enliven your banners still further..
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