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This is a short Adobe Illustrator tutorial that introduces shape modes in the pathfinder palette to create new shapes.

This is a short Adobe Illustrator tutorial on how to have text flow on a path, whether it’s on a path drawn with the pen tool or a shape such as a circle.

by Chad Neuman

Here is how to use layer clipping masks with photos and text in Adobe Photoshop for unique looks for brochures, web sites, and posters.

Step 1
Open Adobe Photoshop and go to File>New and create a new 1024×768 document and click OK.

Step 2
Next, click with the Text tool and type out some text. Change the font to a bold font like Impact so that the photo showing through will be noticeable. Think of the photo you’ll be using and type something to match it.

Step 3
Open a photo you’d like to use and using the Move tool, click-and-drag it onto the Photoshop file with the text, or copy and paste it.

Step 4
Here’s the trick to add the Layer Clipping Mask. On the Layers palette, there should be three layers: Background, the text layer, and the layer with the photo. Make sure the photo layer is on top of the text layer, and press Option (PC: Alt) and left-click with the mouse hovering between the two layers.

Step 5
Now we have text composed of a photo. We can use the Move tool and move either the text or the photo.

Step 6
Try various text and designs. Note: If you open a photo and type text on top, be sure to double-click the Background layer and name it to become a normal layer and then click-and-drag that layer over the text layer before applying the clipping mask.

by Chad Neuman

The Pathfinder palette is a useful to when using Adobe Illustrator. Here’s a tutorial on creating text and gradient clouds using this palette.

Step One
Open Adobe Illustrator and open a New Document. Select the Text tool. Type out the word, “Clouds” and highlight it and change the font to one that is thick. I used Cooper. Set the Fill color to Black and the Stroke should be set to None.

Step Two
With the Selection tool selected, hover over the “Clouds” text and right-click over it. Click Create Outlines. This will outline the text.

Step Three
Hover over “Clouds” again and right-click. Click Ungroup.

Step Four
Now we can move the various letters and re-size them with the Selection tool. Click-and-drag a corner bounding box to resize it and click-and-drag over the letter to move it.

Step Five
Click-and-hold the Rectangle tool on the toolbar and click the Ellipse tool. Click-and-drag a few circles. Hold Shift to make perfect circles.

Step Six
Choose the Rectangle tool and click-and-drag along the bottom of the circles.

Step Seven
Cover up any areas in the middle that aren’t covered, using the Ellipse, Rectangle, or Rounded Rectangle tool.

Step Eight
Go to Window>Pathfinder to open the Pathfinder palette.

Step Nine
With the Selection tool, click-and-drag around all the shapes and click the Add icon on the Pathfinder palette (the top-left corner of the palette). This will make all the shapes one shape.

Step Ten
Click-and-drag the various letters with the Selection tool and place them so they’re partially covering the cloud shape we created.

Step Eleven
Click-and-drag around all the letters and objects with the Selection tool. Click the Add icon on the Pathfinder palette.

Step Twelve
Change the Fill color to the gradient swatch on the Swatches palette. You can change the angle of the gradient by using the Gradient tool from the toolbar. Click-and-drag over the object to set the angle. Change the two colors in the gradient by clicking-and-dragging them from the Swatches palette onto the Gradient palette.

Step Thirteen
Add a few birds by drawing them with the Pencil tool.

Step Fourteen
Draw a few with the Pencil tool and move them over the cloud object by clicking-and-dragging with the Selection tool.

by Chad Neuman

Combining two photos to create a new look is a fun way to learn various techniques. We’ll learn how to use the Circular Marquee tool from the center, adjusting the opacity of a layer, creating a path from a selection and adding text along it in the process. Let’s get started.

Step 1
Open the support file in Adobe Photoshop, an image from NASA in the public domain.

 Step 2
Open an image of a person holding a circular object, such as a ball. This one is by Ronald Bloom and available through iStockPhoto.

Step 3
Now in the earth photo, click-and-drag a ruler guide from the top and bottom, halfway across so it’s in the middle. In the earth photo, subtract the entire length by 2 to get where the cursor needs to be exactly. Note: if rulers aren’t showing, press Command-R (PC: Control-R).

 After drawing the ruler guides, hover the cursor over the center of the photo, where the two guides cross. Hold Option (PC: Alt) and click-and-drag the mouse. Hold Shift to maintain proportion. Once the Elliptical Marquee tool is around the earth, release the mouse button then the keys.

 
Step 4
It should look like this.

Step 5
With the Move tool, click-and-drag the earth photo selection onto the other photo.

 
Step 6
Click-and-drag a corner of the earth layer. If there’s no transform controls on the corners, make sure Show Transform Controls is checked in the Control palette. Lower the opacity of the earth layer in the Layers palette to be able to make it the correct size.

Step 7
The earth needs to be a little bit bigger than the red ball here, since the ball isn’t completely round.

Step 8
Raise the opacity of the layer back to 100% in the Layers palette.

Step 9
Click and Eye icon next to Layer 1, the earth layer to turn its visibility off for now. Use the Quick Selection tool and select the area that overlaps the earth and where we’ll need to bring in front of the earth.

 
Step 10
Click the Eye icon next to Layer 1 again to make it visible. Go to Select>Inverse.

 
Step 11
Now we need to mask out the area of the earth photo where the arm is. We mask out the area instead of erasing so that if we mess up, the pixels can be brought back instead of removing them. With Layer 1 selected, click the Add Layer Mask icon on the Layers palette.

Step 12
The mask automatically masked out where we had a selection.

Step 13
Now for a few touch-ups. The levels seem off on the photo of the girl, so go to Image>Adjustments>Levels. Drag the black arrow to 34 as shown here.

 
Step 14
Now the color levels are a bit richer and better adjusted.

Step 15
Now let’s add a text on a path to the photo. Command-click (PC: Control-click) the thumbnail preview of the Layer 1 on the Layers palette. This will create a circular selection around the pixels in the earth layer.

Step 16
Click the Paths palette tab and click the Make Work Path from Selection icon on the bottom of the Paths palette.

 
Step 17
With the Text tool, click on the left top side of the path we just made.

 
Step 18
Type in some text that matches the photo.

Step 19
With the Move tool, click-and-drag a corner of the text area and expand it so there’s some room between the earth and the text. Now we have a combined photo with some text.

by Chad Neuman

Adding a stroke to some text in Adobe Photoshop can be an effective technique, but most strokes stop at just one. Some designers may try to add another stroke and end up just editing the original one. But there’s an easy technique to add a stroke onto another stroke, and three or four or more strokes on the same text.

Step 1
Open Photoshop and go to File>New for a new file at this size and click OK.

 
Step 2
Click the Text tool in the toolbar and click anywhere and type in some text. Don’t click-and-drag a text box, but instead just click once and then type so we can click-and-drag a corner to resize it later. I set the color of mine to #4891dc by highlighting the text and then clicking the color on the Options palette.

Step 3
Change the font to something that will look good with strokes, such as an san serif font (arial or verdana instead of times new roman). I set it to Maiandra GD. Then click the Move tool and click-and-drag a corner to make it a little bit bigger. Remember to hold Shift to maintain proportion. After resizing, press Return (PC: Enter) to apply resize.

Step 4
Go to Layer>Layer Style>Stroke.

Step 5
The Position should be set to Outside and set the size to 3. Change the color to one that looks good with the original text color.

Step 6
It should look something like this, depending on the colors you selected.

Step 7
Now if we went to Layer>Layer Style>Stroke again, we’d just bring up the options to edit the original stroke. Instead, click-and-drag the text layer to the New Layer icon the Layers palette (or press Command-J (PC: Control-J)). This duplicates the text layer.

Step 8
Now we need to edit the stroke on the lower, original text layer to make it larger. Double-click on the Stroke effect listed on the bottom text layer.

Step 9
Set the size to something larger, such as 6 pixels, and change the color to something that looks good with the other two colors. You could use Adobe Illustrator’s Color Guide palette or just wing it by sight or use a color wheel. Click OK.

Step 10
It should look something like this.

Step 11
Repeat the steps of duplicating a layer and changing the size and color of the stroke to add a third, fourth, or fifth stroke. Remember to edit the lower layer when wanting to make the stroke larger to show past the layer on top of it. Click-and-drag a layer below another if they get arrange in the wrong order. In this example, I gradually went from a royal blue to a different hue blue, creating a retro gradient.

Step 12
Of course, each stroke doesn’t have to have a color, just one to hide the color behind it. Try setting the first stroke to white, and then setting the second stroke to the same color as the text by hovering over the text when selecting the color (it will convert to an Eyedropper tool).

One of the coolest aspects of Illustrator’s Text tool is its flexibility once the text is outlined. You can then edit the text just like any other Illustrator path, moving the letters around and even the lines and shapes around.

Step 1
Start out by typing a simple phrase, a company name, or a slogan. Include the ampersand in it for this example. I used the font Rosewood. Click once with the Text tool to make the first word, then click elsewhere with the Type tool and type the ampersand, then click somewhere else with the Type tool for the other word.

Step 2
With the Selection tool, click the ampersand. Click-and-drag a corner to make it bigger.

Step 3
Let’s make the text more editable for our purposes of reshaping (rather than changing the character of the font). With the Selection tool, Control-click (PC: Right-click) over each word as well as the ampersand and click Create Outlines.

Step 4
Next, with the Selection tool, Control-click (PC: Right-click) again over each word and the ampersand and click Ungroup.

Step 5
Zoom in the art to see that we can now edit the text as shapes. With the Selection tool, click-and-drag the letters to move them closer together. Click-and-drag on a corner box to resize specific letters. With the Direct Selection tool, click an Anchor point to stretch the letter or make it conform to another letter.

Step 6
Click-and-hold the Pen tool to get the Add Anchor Point tool. Click on the paths were there should be another anchor point to add one. Then use the Direct Selection tool to move it.

Step 7
In some spots, you can have one letter’s stroke adjacent to another. Be creative with how the shapes of the letters conform to the other letters.

Step 8
Now instead of a boring slogan we have various sizes and shapes for the letters, some flush with each other.

Step 9
Try adding a gradient fill. Click-and-drag with the Selection tool a box around all of shapes (or go to Select>All). Go to Window>Gradient, select colors from the Swatch (Window>Swatches), and choose a gradient to finish the look. You may also want to color specific letters differently. For this just select each letter separately, then choose a color from the Swatches palette.

Learn to create warped text that is still editable on top of another object by creating a pirate’s map.

Sometimes it’s necessary to create outlines of text so that it can be distorted. But perhaps you want to be able to modify text after it’s warped. Here’s a neat way to do that. September 19th was Talk Like a Pirate Day, so let’s make a pirate’s map using this envelope warping technique. Here’s the image file I used: a map of Madagascar.

Step 1
Open a new document in Adobe Illustrator. Choose the Text tool, and click-and-drag and area to insert some text. You can type in some text, and Edit>Copy from another source and Edit>Paste into the text box. I’ve inserted some text from the classic book, Treasure Island, which is in the public domain.

Step 2
Change the font style and size to your liking by clicking-and-dragging over it with the Text tool then changing the font on the Options Bar or under the Type pull-down menu. I’ve used Snell Roundhand at 20 points to get a more “pirate” feel.

Step 3
Choose the Rectangle tool, and change the Fill and Stroke to None. Click-and-drag a box just around the text.

Step 4
Select both the new box and the text underneath it by clicking-and-dragging around both with the Selection tool. Go to Object>Envelope Distort>Make with Top Object.

Step 5
Go to Object>Envelope Distort>Reset With Warp. Choose a shape for the warp; the Fish shape makes for a good curved piece of paper look if the settings are correct – Horizontal Selected, Bend % set to 10, and the Horizontal Distortion set to 14 and the Vertical Distortion set to 17.

Step 6
Go to File>Place and choose the map of Madagascar. Click Place.

Step 7
With the Selection tool, click the placed art and resize by clicking-and-dragging a corner bounding box. Then click on the Live Trace pull-down arrow and choose Color 6. This will convert the map to a vector object.

Step 8
With the map selected, go to Object>Envelope Distort>Make with Warp. Enter the same settings as before: Fish shape, Horizontal Selected, Bend at 10%, and Horizontal Distortion set to 14 and Vertical Distortion set to 17.

Step 9
With the map selected, go to Object>Arrange>Send to Back and then change it’s Transparency to 70% (Window>Transparency).

Step 10
Click-and-drag the map directly underneath the text. Now both the map and the text are curving on the same shape coordinates. What’s neat about this is that you can still edit the text. Go to Object>Envelope Distort>Edit Contents and use the Text tool to edit the text. I changed the text “shook the four corners” to bold.