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Sunday, February 4, 2024
Dragon Queen
This tutorial was written by me on May 8, 2022. The results are of my own imagination. Any resemblance to another tutorial is purely coincidental.
Please DO NOT claim this tutorial as your own.
This was written assuming you have a working knowledge of PS.
Please keep in mind that I write the tutorial as I am creating it.
Sometimes I may not explain properly where to place things so please see my example if you are ever in doubt :)
Supplies needed
I am using Adobe Photoshop 2021 but this tutorial should work with any version.
You can download the 7 day trial of PS here.
FTU Tube: I am using Kiya Design's gorgeous tube "Dragon Queen". You can get this beauty from her store here.
FTU Kit: I am using a gorgeous kit called "Magic" created by TADD. Thank you for your awesome kits. You can download it from PFD here.
FTU Animation: I am using Kiya Designs awesome Freebie animation. You can grab it at her store here.
Please see Rene's Animation How-to for PS here.
FTU Font: Angista Script which you can grab here.
Plug in: Eyecandy 7 gradient glow for the copyright
Drop shadow of choice.
Please read all the Artist's/Designer's TOU.
To open an image, I click on the element or paper in the file folder and drag it into PS.
To transfer an element or paper in PS to my tag, I left click and drag it into my working canvas.
The other way is to left click and drag the element from the folder right onto your tag.
Either way you will get the same results :). I will be using the both method for this tutorial.
For resizing and rotating I use the Ctrl+T command.
To mirror or Flip go to Edit, Transform, Flip Horizontal (mirror) or Flip vertical (Flip).
Remember to save your tag often in case PS crashes. I always save my tags as a psd image. It keeps all the layers and if you make tags for others you will always have the template.
Let's get started.
If you are unable to see the screen shots, left click on it to enlarge it.
Open a new 800x800 transparent image. We will resize later.
To do this go to File>New
Add a new Raster layer. (Click the + icon on the bottom of the layers panel)
Go to Layers>New Fill Layer>Solid Color and use ffffff and click ok.
Now we are ready to start the tag.
I use the Ctrl+T command to resize an element or you can go to Edit>Free Transform.
Drag TADD element Magic directly onto your working canvas and move to the top center.
Standing on the Magic layer in your layer panel, Right click the mouse and select
Duplicate, Move this layer to the lower left of the tag.
Duplicate again, Standing on this duplicate layer, Got to Edit>Transform>Flip Horizontal and move to the lower right.
Drag element 60 into your tag. Resize 69.19% and move to the upper left of the tag.
Drag element 42 into your tag. Move down and to the right slightly. (we will come back to this later on how to erase the stairs)
Drag element 46 into your tag. Resize 56.79% and move to the lower left.
Drag element 49 into your tag. Resize 54.04% and move to the top of the book.
Drag element 35 into your tag. Resize 73.71% and move to the bottom of the book.
Open Dragon Queen tube in PS. Select the layers you would like to use on your tube by clicking on the eyeball to make the layers visible.
Click on the eyeball of a visible layer to hide it. Holding down the Ctrl key, Select each visible layer.
Once all layers are selected, hit Ctrl+G on your keyboard to group the layer.
Standing on your new Group, right click the group and select duplicate group but do not hit ok.
On the drop down, select your tag name and hit ok.
You can close the original tube but do not save changes.
Back to the tag.
Standing on the tube group, right click and convert to smart object. You will need the tube as a smart object to do the next step.
Resize your tube by 40% and move to the upper left of the book. Don't worry about the over hang as I'm going to show you how to remove it.
Standing on the tube layer. Go to Select and select all. Go to Layers, Layer mask and select reveal all.
You will see a white square next to your tube in the layers pallet.
In the layers pallet, select the white square next to the tube. With your foreground set to black, select your brush tool with the following settings.
Soft brush set to 100, Mode Normal, Opacity and Flow 100%Smoothing 0%.
Make sure you are still on the mask layer. Now paint the bottom of the tube that you do not want showing in your tag. You should have something similar to this when you are done.
We will come back to this layer after we apply the drop shadow.
Now select the book layer (element 42) and repeat the above steps to hide the stairs that overhang.
When I animate a tag, I normally duplicate my tube x2 to help reduce the grainy look on the finished tag.
Select the Tube Layer. Right click and select duplicate layer.
On the duplicate, Right click and select convert to smart object.
Got to Filters, Blur, Gaussian blur and set the Radius to 3.0 Pixels and hit ok.
Still standing on the duplicate layer, Hold down your Ctrl key and click on the original tube layer to make a selection. (don't worry about the part of the selection showing the lower part of the tube). Still on the duplicate layer, go to Layers, Layer Mask, reveal selection.
You should now have a mask of the tube next to the tube. Change the blend move to soft light and lower the opacity to 40%.
Duplicate the duplicate layer. change the blend mode on this layer to screen and lower the opacity to 30%.
Drag element 55 into the tag. Resize 71.05% and move to the bottom of the tube.
Drag element 48 into the tag. Resize 55.05% and move to the bottom of the unicorn.
Drag element 51 into the tag. Resize 17.34% and move to the bottom left of the pillow.
Ok we are finished with the elements but we are missing the drop shadow.
Now we are going to apply the drop shadow.
Select the bottom element (the tree) in the layers pallet. On the bottom of the layer pallet, select the FX icon then select Drop shadow.
Apply the following settings but do not click ok.
Select the outer glow and apply the following settings:
Click ok.
We have the drop shadow on the tree. Now standing on the tree layer, right click and select copy layer style.
Select the book layer, holding down your shift key, select the original tube layer. Right click and select paste layer style.
Now select element 55 layer and hold down the shift key and select the top layer. Right click and paste layer style.
Drop shadow completed.
We need to do one more step for the layers we applied the brush mask (Original tube layer and element 42). click on the Tube layer and then double click on the style to bring up the style box.
Select Blend options. On the Blend options click on Layer Mask Hides Effects.
Select your crop tool on the left side tool bar.
I used the following settings.
I moved the crop box sides until it fit nicely on my tag and didn't cut off any of the elements. Once happy with selection, click the check mark on the top of the tool bar.
Resize your tag by going to Image, image size with the following settings or a size you like.
I resize mine to 650 on the width as this is the size that fits on my blog nicely.
Add your copyright. (please read Kiya's TOU on how to use her copyright credits.)
For the name, I used Angista Script with a color of #7ebed9 and the following settings:
I duplicated the text and then applied the style settings from Rene's tutorial here.
Scroll towards the bottom of the tutorial.
If you don't want to animate, hide the white background layer. go to File, Export, Save for Web legacy. When the new window opens select the drop down on the Preset and select PNG-24 and click save.
Animation:
On your tag, select the layer you would like the animation to be placed. I wanted the animation behind the dragon. I selected layer 35.
Open Kiya's Freebie02 animation in PS.
You will notice there is 16 layer. Select layer 16, hold down your shift key and select layer 1. All layers should be selected. On your keyboard, hold down Ctrl +G to group the layers.
Standing on the new group layer, right click and select duplicate group. Do not hit ok when the pop up appears. We are using the same method as we did for Kiya's Tube earlier in this tutorial.
On the drop down, select your tag name and click ok.
Close Kiya's original animation and don't save changes.
Standing on the animation group layer on your tag. Hit Ctrl + T on our keyboard or go to edit, free transform and resize your animation 15%. Make sure the link is selected between width and horizontal. Click ok. Move the group behind the Dragon.
Click on the little white arrow beside Group 1 to expand it. Click on the eyeball of each layer to hide it but leave frame layer 1 visible. Click on the arrow beside group one to hide it as we do not want to accidentally make any changes.
Next make sure your Timeline viewer is open on the bottom of PS. I you do not see a row that has Timeline on the bottom, go to Windows, Timeline.
In the center of the Timeline viewer you will see a drop down box. On the drop down select Create Frame Animations.
Next is animating.
Click on the little icon (four white lines) at the right end of the animation screen then select make frames from layers.
You are going to see a big mess in the animation window but we are going to fix this.
Click on the first frame and click on the trash can in the animation window. Repeat this until you reach the first frame of the animation.
Now you should be at the first frame of the animation. Click on frame 17 and hit the trash can. Repeat for all the remaining frames. You should be left with 16 frames in the animation window. This is the amount of frames for our animation.
This next step is very important. Any changes you do from here you must be on frame 1 in the Timeline viewer. It will be highlighted in white.
Go to the bottom of your tag in the layers panel. Make sure you have animation frame 1 selected.
Click on the eyeball beside each layer to make it visible. Do not touch the group layer.
Next, I want to slow down the animation. With the first frame selected, hold down the shift key and click on frame 16. This will select all the frames.
Next, click on the little black arrow beside the 0 sec as we want to change the speed. A pop up window will appear.
I selected 0.2 Sec. Now click on the play button to view the animation. Click on it again to stop it.
Click frame 1 again so we don't accidentally make any changes.
Now to save our tag as a gif.
Go to File>Export>Save for Web(Legacy).
A new pop up window will appear. Change the settings to my screen shot below. My screen shot will look different but the settings are the same.
I hope you have enjoyed my tutorial.
Have Fun!!
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