Jen
Creative Chick
Admin
Posts: 8,309
|
Post by Jen on Oct 14, 2009 14:12:11 GMT -6
This is the signature we will be making.
|
|
Jen
Creative Chick
Admin
Posts: 8,309
|
Post by Jen on Oct 14, 2009 14:12:50 GMT -6
The butterfly was done in a separate file. The last step in making the signature is dragging the butterfly into its file. This is the butterfly I used for the siggy. The orange one is just a reduced copy that I added a gradient overlay to. I lowered the butterfly layer's opacity and added a blue layer so you could better see the path. In part 2 of this tutorial I will show you how to animate the butterflies that's why I have cut them out the way I am going to show you in this tutorial. Even if you choose to not animate your butterfly signature if you cut your butterflies out this way you can change the wings for each butterfly you use. When you first open your butterfly picture double click the Background in the layers palette and from the pop up window choose to make it a layer. What I have done so far in this picture is I took the pen tool and made a path around the wing. I used the direct selection tool to clean up my path. Then I went to the paths palette and clicked the arrow in the top right corner and chose Save Path... I named the path wing.
|
|
Jen
Creative Chick
Admin
Posts: 8,309
|
Post by Jen on Oct 14, 2009 14:13:19 GMT -6
Now I made a new path around the body. To make sure the two paths are separate make sure when you start the body path that the wing path is turned off, so not highlighted/showing. After my path was done I named and saved it as body. When you have completed the two paths you need to go back to your layers palette and put the opacity back to 100% for the butterfly layer, that's if you lowered it like I did. Go to the paths palette and make sure the body path is highlighted, showing. Now click the button I have outlined in red to make your path a selection. Choose Layer>New>Layer via Copy from the menu bar and you should have a layer of your body. Deselect. Repeat what you just did for the wing path. Remember when it's time to choose Layer>New>Layer via Copy make sure the original butterfly layer is the active layer not the body layer. Now if you don't want to use the pen tool that's okay you could also use the lasso tool to make a selection around the wing and then choose Select>Modify>Smooth>1. Then with the same selection choose Layer>New>Layer via Copy. Deselect. Then you would click on the original butterfly layer so it's active and do the same for the body. You should then have a wing layer and a body layer. The other option is to take your magic wand tool and click in the background of your butterfly picture and choose delete. When you do this you should have a complete butterfly. Just make sure you have double clicked on the Background in the layers palette and made it a layer before you click delete. If your background is not a solid color it might be a bit more difficult to delete it this way.
|
|
Jen
Creative Chick
Admin
Posts: 8,309
|
Post by Jen on Oct 14, 2009 14:14:01 GMT -6
Here are my wing and body layers.
|
|
Jen
Creative Chick
Admin
Posts: 8,309
|
Post by Jen on Oct 14, 2009 14:14:29 GMT -6
Make a copy of the wing layer and choose Edit>Transform>Scale from the menu bar. You want to click on and grab the square the black arrow is pointing to on the bounding box. Hold the shift key and drag the box to the right about the distance you see I have. Click the check or whatever you need to do to apply it.
|
|
Jen
Creative Chick
Admin
Posts: 8,309
|
Post by Jen on Oct 14, 2009 14:14:53 GMT -6
Name the wing copy layer 2. Make a copy of layer 2 and name it 3. With layer 3 as the active layer choose Edit>Transform>Scale from the menu bar. Just like before grab the square and hold the shift key while you drag the box to the right. Click the check to apply it.
|
|
Jen
Creative Chick
Admin
Posts: 8,309
|
Post by Jen on Oct 14, 2009 14:15:17 GMT -6
Now make a copy of the wing layer, layer 2 and layer 3. Click on the wing copy layer to make it active and link layers 2 copy and 3 copy to it. You are just linking these layers together you are not merging them.
|
|
Jen
Creative Chick
Admin
Posts: 8,309
|
Post by Jen on Oct 14, 2009 14:15:41 GMT -6
Now choose Edit >Transform>Flip Horizontal.
|
|
Jen
Creative Chick
Admin
Posts: 8,309
|
Post by Jen on Oct 14, 2009 14:16:13 GMT -6
Once you have flipped those layers take your move tool and while holding the shift key drag them to the right until you are happy with their position.
|
|
Jen
Creative Chick
Admin
Posts: 8,309
|
Post by Jen on Oct 14, 2009 14:16:50 GMT -6
Now you are going to link and merge the following layers... wing with wing copy 2 with 2 copy 3 with 3 copy In the picture I am at the final step. I have linked 3 copy to 3 and have chosen Merge Linked by clicking the tiny arrow in the top right corner of the layers palette. Now your butterfly is ready to use in your signature.
|
|