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Make a Metal Heart with Photoshop CS
By Cristina Blomberg
Jan 26, 2005, 01:27

Let's make a metal heart element for your Valentine layouts.

1. Begin by opening a new file. Make it any size you want, but be sure to have the same settings as below. This will make it easier to save your element later for easy drag-and-drop use.


2. From the tool bar, select the "blob"... this is the Custom Shape tool.


3. When the Custom Shape tool is selected, you'll see this just under the Menu bar:


4. Click in the upper left corner of your new file and drag the shape until you fill the area with the shape. When you release the click, the shape will form:

Your basic heart shape in black.

5. Back up at the Menu bar, click on Layer> Rasterize> Layer.


6. Look at your swatch pallete and make sure that the STYLES tab is showing. Right under the X is a small arrow, click on that to change the Styles. A drop-down menu will appear with a list. Choose the option "Buttons".

This screenshot shows the default styles.

7. Your Styles tab should now look like this:

These are your style choices after you select "Buttons" from the drop-down menu.

8. Scroll down through the choices, and choose the style called "Smoke". (When you move your mouse over the styles slowly, you will see the names of the styles.)

This is the Smoke style that simulates metal.

9. Click on the small "Smoke" icon, and Photoshop will automatically apply a Drop Shadow, Bevel and Emboss, and Pattern Overlay. The preset settings will make your heart look like this:

Heart with preset "Smoke" settings.

10. You can adjust the preset settings by right-clicking in your Layers palette and opening the Blending Options window. In the example below, I removed the preset drop shadow.

After removing the shadow and adjusting the screen.

11. Saving the element without a drop shadow will allow you to add the shadow later in your work. (With similar drop shadows in one work, the effect looks much more realistic.) Be sure to save your element as a png (portable network graphic) file so that there is no background. From the Menu bar, choose File>Save As to open the file save window. From the File Format drop-down menu, choose PNG (*PNG), as shown below:

Save your file as a png for easy use later.

These are only basic instructions for a quick metal element. If you play around with the slider in the Blending Options, you will find many different options and effects.

Happy Scrapping!

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