Creating a Golf Ball

We will start off with a blank canvas with a black background. Create a New Layer and make a circle marquee selection the size of your golf ball. TIP: Hold SHIFT when drawing a circle with the Elliptical marquee tool to make it a perfect circle:

Next, fill in the selection with White, on the new layer we just created. Then open up a new document, relatively small, around 25x25px, and then draw a small black circle on a transparent background:

Now press Ctrl+A to Select All and goto Edit > Define Pattern. Give it a name if you want, and click Ok. Now let's go back to our golf ball document and double-click the layer we created to bring up the layer styles. Click on Pattern Overlay and choose the pattern we just created:

We are probably going to want to resize our pattern, so use the slider for Scale to adjust. When you're satisfied, click Ok. Now create a new layer and drag it beneath our golf ball layer, then choose the golf ball layer and press Ctrl+E (Merge Down). This will merge the two layers and apply the Layer Styles. next, we want to goto Edit > Transform > Rotate, and rotate 45°, like so: (TIP: If you hold down Shift whilst rotating, you can snap to 15° increments).

Now we make sure that the golf ball is still the selection, and then we goto Filter > Distort > Spherize. We will keep the default settings and should get something like this:

Making sure we still have the same selection, choose the Gradient tool and then we want the colors to be White and Black. Also reduce the opacity to 50% or so, and we want a Radial gradient. We are going to create a gradient from the center of the ball (White), to the edge (Black). We should have something like this:

Now we will want to press Ctrl+A to select all, and press Ctrl+Shift+C to Copy Merged, which will copy the whole document and layers, then goto the Channels tab and add a new one. Then we will paste into the new Channel. Then go back to Layers and click the golf ball layer to select it, then goto Filter > Render > Lighting Effects. And using the Channel we just created, we will do something like this:

It might look a little dark right now, but we can fix it by going to Image > Adjustments > Levels. Mose the sliders to play around with the image and see what works for you. We come out with this:

Notice the edges are a bit sharp. We will add some Layer Styles to finish this off. You can play around with the Layer Styles, but for this example, I used a Inner Shadow, Color Overlay, and Gradient Overlay. Inner Shadow had Distance of 10, and a Size of 32; Gradient Overlay was Radial and had a Blend Mode of Hard Light and a scale of 134%. You should experiment with these values.

Shoe Box

Create a new document the size you want your shoe box to be, create a new layer called "shoebox_top". Select the rectangular marquee tool and create a simple black rectangle.

Goto "edit > transform > perspective", select the top left corner achor point and drag towards the right untill you have something like the image below.

Add these layer styles to your layer.

Select the polygonal lasso tool and create x2 shapes similar to the image below both on seperate layers.

Fill the selections with black then goto "filter > blur > guassian blur" blur by about 24pixels. Lower the opacity right down untill you can just about see a shade on the box. Select your "shoebox_top" layer whilst holding down the CTRL button on the keyboard then goto "select > inverse" then hit the delete key. Your shades should now be trimed. You should have something like this.

Make sure your shade layers are above every other layer at ALL times. Select the rectangular marquee tool once again, on a new layer called "shoebox_middle" create another rectangle like this.

Again using the perspective tool (edit > transform > perspective) only this time using the bottom left achor point drag inwards untill you have something like this.

Add these layer styles to your layer.

Using the same methods as mentioned above create the last panel for your box.

Add these layer styles to your last box panel.

You should have something like this.

Create a new layer inbetween your middle and bottom layer, create a black rectangle 2-3 pixels shorter than your middle rectangle. Blur your black rectangle about 10 pixels, lower the opacity to 64%. Place the rectangle under your middle section to act as a shadow. Finally trim off the blurred edges that exceed past your rectangle.

Now you have your shoe box, decorate it. Here are some examples.

Author's URL: www.hv-designs.co.uk

Sketchbook Wallpapers

To make background more interesting, open Effects menu - Distort - Lens correction, and set Vignette amount to about -30..35.

I could draw sheet of notebook paper using vector tools, but I decided to take actual sheet and scan it. Because paper is white, I put it under black book and scanned this way.

Open scanned image in Photoshop, open Levels (Ctrl-L), move black triangle to the right as shown here, and white rectangle to the left. Paper should become completely white (no light grey) and background completely black.

Invert image (Ctrl-I). Then, if your image is "flattened" (there is only one layer called Background) you should "un-flatten" it. To do it, double click Background layer and click OK. It should be claled Layer 0 now. Now, this layer can contain transparency (we will need it now).

Remove white from the image. Use the following commands: - Ctrl-A (select all) - Ctrl-C (copy) - Q (enter quick mask) - Ctrl-V (paste) - Q (quit quick mask) - Del (delete selection) - Ctrl-D (deselect) Then use Ctrl-U (Hue/Saturation window) and set Lightness to -100.

Invert image - our paper is white again. Copy and paste it to our original file (with wooden background).

If you prefer, you can use the same Hue/Saturation window (Ctrl-U) to make paper beige color (use Colorize checkbox for that).

Next step is to create shadow that will make paper edges "flow" above the wood a bit. Duplicate layer with paper, make it black (Ctrl-U, lightness = - 100). Open Edit menu - Transform - Warp. On Toolbar, set Warp mode to Arch, and Bend = 2.

Apply a little Gaussian blur (Effects menu - Blur - Gaussian blur) with radius = 1-2 px. Set layer mode to Soft light or Overlay.

In Layers palette, move layer with shadow under layer with paper. Select layer with paper and make similar transform, but warp the other side (Edit - Transform - Warp): Warp = Arch, Bend = -1 or -2.

Find appropriate texture for paper. This is texture I have in my stock images storage.

Paste it in new layer above layer with paper...

... and Create Clipping Mask (Ctrl-Shift-G), from Layer menu.

Scan the sketch, paste it into new layer right after layer with paper texture.

Set layer mode to Multiply, then Transform (Ctrl-T) as needed - resize and rotate.

Finally, Create Clipping Mask again (Ctrl-Shift-G or from Layer menu). That's all!

A Retro Poster

Step 1

Start a new document at a size of 1900x1200. Click here to download this textured background picture and place it in to the picture and put the Opacity to 40%.

Step 2

Create new layer and fill with yellow and set the layer to Soft Light and Opacity to 30%

Step 3

Create new layer and set the foreground colour to #9d640a and select brush I have selected this brush but if you dont have that brush just choose one which adds a little texture.

Now draw around a little and set the layer to Multiply and Opacity of 70%. You should have something like below.

Step 4

Ok create a new document and click on the marquee and select the rectangular and do as the image below is.

Step 5

Create new layer and set the background on your colour palet to what ever colour you like... I have set it to 7d8d72, now press Ctrl and backspace.

Step 6

Now duplicate layer and move it 10 notches to the right and then goto Layer/Layer Style/Colour overlay and set the colour to what colour you would like to have. Now do this again for another 4 times untill you get something like the picture below.

Step 7

Now select background layer and click on magic Eraser tool and delete white background.

Step 8

Now select the shape layer and goto Edit/Define Pattern and save it.

Step 9

Now go back to your original document and create a new layer and click on the paint bucket tool and at the top left of the page set it to pattern and fill the page. You will have to erase the over lapping pattern fill so that you get an image like this

Step 10

Now press Ctrl and T and resize it to the image below

Step 11

Create a new layer and follow step 9.

Step 12

Now press Ctrl T and then right click on it and click Perspective and get is like the image below. Keep it a little below the other pattern like I have.

Step 13

Zoom in so that the middle of the page is big. Now select the pen tool and do as shown below.

Step 14

Create new layer and call it middle1. Now with the pen tool still selected goto the pattern you have just created and right click and select make selection and feather 0. Set the background on the colour pallet as the colour you have chosen for that pattern and press Ctrl and backspace. You may have to arase alittle to make it perfect.

Step 15

Now create a new layer and call it middle2 and copy the rest of step 14, do this untill you have finished and have an image as below. Then merge all middle layers, top and bottome pattern layer.

Step 16

Click here I purchased this picture and got the pen tool and went round the people and cut them out. I then went to Filter/Artistic and selected Colourd Pencil and placed it onto my image like so.

Step 17

Now duplicate layer and press Ctrl T and goto Edit/Free Transform/Flip Horizontal and then rotate like shown.

Step 18

Now goto Layer/Layer Style/Colour Overlay and fill in black. Set the layer Opacity to 50% and goto Filter/Blur/Caussian Blur and Radius to 8.5

Step 19

Create new layer and pick a colour and brush of your choice to make foot steps like the picture below. Dont forget to make foot steps bigger as they get closer.

Final Step

Click Here and download this textured background and then place it above all layers. Set the Opacity to 50%. Ive then added text and then all is done.