From the course: Deke's Techniques (2018-2021)

751 Creating a creepy Candy Keeper in Photoshop

From the course: Deke's Techniques (2018-2021)

Start my 1-month free trial

751 Creating a creepy Candy Keeper in Photoshop

“

- Hey gang, this is Deke McClelland. Welcome to Deke's Techniques! Now in exactly one week and one day, it will be Halloween. Of course, you're so popular, you'll probably be out on the town clubbin' it that night, but don't deprive the trick-or-treaters, for whom Halloween is an innocent opportunity for a nighttime tour of the neighborhood. So turn on the lights and put out a big bowl of candy. Wonderful, delicious, absolutely Willy Wonka-like candy. The problem is, how do you protect your thoughtful purchase of all those full-sized Butterfingers and Mars bars from the local hoodlums whose aim it is to steal it? The answer? Create a watchful, but menacing Candy Keeper in Photoshop. He's like a crypt keeper, except for candy! And of course, he's terribly ghoulish. Everyone will be so frightened they'll take just one. All right, here's the final version of that very busy composition so you have a chance to see it on-screen. We're going to start things off inside this horrifying photograph from the Dreamstime image library, about which you can learn more and get some great deals to dreamstime.com/deke.php. Go now, you'll be glad you did! All right, I'm going to delete that URL layer by pressing the backspace key here on the PC, or the delete key on the Mac, and notice that I have a couple of layers of text, both of which have converted to vector-based shape layers. This text right here was set in a font called Amatic and then this stuff was set in a stuff called Ghoulish, and you can learn more about each one of these fonts if you like just by hovering over the layer's name as you see me doing right here, at which point, you can see the layer name in its entirety. All right, now I'm going to infuse this image with orange and the best way to do that where this particular composition is concerned is to select the skull layer and then go up to Layer menu, choose New Fill Layer, and choose Solid Color. And then I'll dial in a Hue value of 33 degrees, which is orange, and I'll take both the Saturation and Brightness values up to 90% and then I'll click OK. All right, now I want to move the solid layer below the skull layer, and one way to do that is to press Control + Left Bracket. That's going to be Command + Left Bracket on the Mac. Of course, you could drag the layer if you prefer. And now I'm going to select the skull layer, and one way to do that is to press Alt + Right Bracket. That would be Option + Right Bracket on a Mac, or of course, you can just click on it. Now I'm going to change the Blend mode to Multiply. And notice here inside Photoshop CC 2019 that Blend modes preview on the fly, which I think is one of the best enhancements, ever. Anyway, I'm going to go ahead and choose Multiply, and now I want to reduce the Opacity, but at this point here on a PC, my Blend mode is stuck, so I need to press the escape key to unstick it, and then, assuming that one of your selection tools is active up here at the top of the toolbox, you can just tap seven-seven. So two sevens in a row to take the Opacity value down to 77%. And just like that, the text is much more legible than it was a moment ago. And to show you the difference, I'll go up to the Window menu and choose the History command in order to bring up the History panel. And then I'll click on this history state right there, layer visibility, which is when I turned on the second shape layer. And now, once again, here inside Photoshop CC 2019, I can switch back and forth between these history states by pressing Control + Alt + z. That's going to be Command + Option + z on the Mac. So that's before, and this is after, which demonstrates just how powerful, not to mention terrifying, a layer of solid color can be. All right, now if you're a member of lynda.com/linkedinlearning, I have a follow-up movie in which I show you how to enhance all of the text associated with our Candy Keeper. If you're looking forward to next week, we're going to take this artwork and we're going to turn it into an old worn and creased monster movie poster. Deke's Techniques, each and every week! Keep watching! Keep watching!

Contents