With the holidays coming I thought I’d start sharing a few quick tricks to help create cards and invitations.

I’m starting off with the popular Starburt Effect

We need to start off by making a stripe pattern. Open a file and size it to 20 by 100 pixels. Have your two colors already picked out in the color pallet. Fill in the picture with your top color.

Then at your top toolbar go to IMAGE then CANVAS SIZE. Set the width to 20 pixels. In the ANCHOR BOX set it to the far left middle square. In the canvas color pick BACK GROUND COLOR. The press ok

Next you are going to save this as a defining pattern by going to the top tool bar and selecting EDIT then DEFINE PATTERN. Name it what ever you will remember and press ok.

Now open a new image any size you would like your picture to be. Make a copy of the background by going to the top toolbar and IMAGE and DUPLICATE IMAGE.

In the LAYERS tool bar look for the fx at the bottom of box (this is the ADD LAYER STYLE) and select PATTERN OVERLAY.

Next you will pick the pattern we just made earlier by clicking the drop down arrow on the pattern box.

at the bottom of the box you will see our pattern.  Click on the pattern and adjust the SCALE (or size) as needed. Press OK

Now we have our pattern so merge the layers by pressing CTL + E. Now we have vertical stripes.  Now go to your top tool bar and choose FILTER then DISTORT and finally POLAR COORDINATES. You can leave as is if you want or adjust where the middle starts by clicking in the box(you’ll see a little glove) and moving it around. Select OK.

Now you’re done and free to go where ever your imagination takes you with it. Have fun!

Adobe Photoshop has launched a new Beta version of a Photoshop Express for photo hosting and editing.  I played with this today and decided this is a great way for those who don’t know how to use or can’t get into editing software to play with their photos for free. You have multiple options from color pop to fixing blemishes and much more. Photoshop Express also offers 2 gigs of storage. It’s worth it to at least check out. 

Check it out here: Adobe Photoshop Express

Here is a quick and easy lesson to create a mirror word images in Photoshop that you can use for websites, digital scrap book pages or anything your creative mind can find use for.

Step 1: Start by opening a new document page; what ever size you would like to use then type something. I would start off using a simple and bold font.

Step 2: Create a new blank layer and name it MIRROR WORDS. Make sure the background layer is NOT visible and merge the blank layer and the word layer by pressing CTRL + SHIFT + ALT + E. Photoshop CS2 automatically creates a new layer when doing this.

Step 3: We are now going to turn the MIRROR WORDS layer upside down by going to EDIT > TRANSFORM > FLIP HORIZONTAL. Change the transform option to SKEW and stretch it just a little so it isn’t perfectly strait with the top.

Step 4: After you flip the image you want to match the bottom edges to the master words. If any of the the “mirror” are over lapping the top words erase them so there is a even line between them.

Step 5: Select LAYER STYLE and GRADIENT OVERLAY . Use two colors one being the color of the font, the other the color of the background. You can customize your colors by clicking on the color box and a new window will open. Click on the small box in the left colorUse the dropper and click on the font color and click ok. Set the layer style to REVERSE; if needed, so the text color is on top.

Step 6: Change the visibility but lowering the OPACITY in the layer box. I usually go down to 50% or less.

Step 7: Lower the saturation (Remove some of the color) by going to IMGAGE > ADJUSTMENTS > HUE/SATURATION. Reduce it by 10 to 25% so it’s just a little less saturation.

Step 8: Blur slightly by going to FILTER > BLUR > GAUSSIAN BLUR. You just need a little feathering / blurring so 1 to 2 pixels should be fine.

Step 9: Select the original text layer and using LAYER STYLE add a DROP SHADOW according to taste.

YOUR DONE! Now you can do what every your imagination tells you to do with it!

On a side note you can basically use the same steps above with photos and other pictures for a reflection effect with a little playing, blurring and using the smudge tool.