Hi. This is Marty from Blue Lightning TV. I'm going to show you how to create this classic,
military dog tag with your text.
This tutorial is in 2 parts. In Part 1, we'll create the dog tag template
and in Part 2, we'll complete it by stamping text into the metal. I provided
a Photoshop file for you to download , which includes this camouflage fabric and this military,
dog tag template. I also included this bare metal texture that we'll use later, as well
as the link to the font I'll be using. For your convenience, I already set guidelines
for this template. If you don't see them, press Ctrl + H on Windows or Cmd + H on a
Mac. Go to View and make sure "Snap" is checked. If it isn't, just click on it.
Click the New Layer icon to make a new layer.
Open your Pen Tool. . If you're not familiar with
this tool, I did an in-depth tutorial showing how to make paths with it. I provided its
link in my video's description. Choose "Path". If you're working on version CS5 or earlier,
the Path Tool is here. Click once on the top, middle guideline to make an anchor point.
Release and press and hold Shift as you click on the bottom, middle guideline to make a
vertical path. Release and again, press and hold Shift as you click on the crosshairs
of this guideline to make a horizontal path. Release and this time, don't press Shift.
Click on this crosshair. Go to the middle of this path and press and hold Alt or Option
as you click on it to add an anchor point. Release and press and hold Ctrl or Cmd and
drag the anchor point to the edge of the curved template. Continue to hold Ctrl or Cmd as
you drag the Control Handle up at an angle to make the path curve as close to the curve
that you see on the template. Right-click on your document and click "Make Selection".
Make the Feather Radius: 0 and click OK. We'll fill the selection with black. If your foreground
and background colors aren't black and white respectively, press "D" on your keyboard.
Since black is the foreground color, press Alt or Option + Delete. To deselect it, press
Ctrl or Cmd + D. Make a copy of it by pressing Ctrl or Cmd + J. Open your Transform Tool
by pressing Ctrl or Cmd + T. Go to the top, middle of the Transform and when you see a
vertical, double-arrow, drag it down until it snaps to the bottom guideline. Then, press
Enter or Return. Merge the two layers by pressing Ctrl or Cmd + E. Make a copy of it and open
your Transform Tool again. Go to the right edge of the Transform and when you see a horizontal,
double-arrow, drag it to the left until it snaps to the left guideline. Then, press,
Enter or Return. Merge the two layers and reduce its opacity, so we can see the hole
on the template. Open your Elliptical Marquee Tool. Go to the middle of the hole and press
and hold Alt or Option + Shift as you drag out a circular selection. Press the "Delete"
key on your keyboard to delete the shape inside the selection. Deselect it and increase the
opacity back to 100%. Now that we have our dog tag shape, we can trash the original template
and hide the guidelines by pressing Ctrl or Cmd + H. Click off the eyeball next to the
background to hide the layer. You'll probably see a light vertical and horizontal crosshair,
which occurred when we merged the four sections of our dog tag shape. To get rid of the crosshairs,
press Ctrl or Cmd + J twice and then, press Ctrl or Cmd + E twice, to merge them. This
will fill in those lines. Click back the eyeball to make the background visible and Ctrl-click
or Cmd-click on the thumbnail of the shape to make a selection of it. Hide the shape
and click the New Layer icon to make a new layer. Click the Layer Mask icon to make a
layer mask of the selection next to the empty layer. Click the empty layer to make it active.
Open your Gradient Tool and Gradient Picker. Click the gear icon to open your list of gradient
presets and click "Metals". Click OK to replace the current gradients with the gradients from
Metals. Make sure your Linear gradient icon is clicked. Click this gradient, which is
called "Steel Bar". Click the gradient bar to open the Gradient Editor. Click the lower,
left Stop and the color box. In the Brightness field, type in 50%. and click OK.
Click the lower, right Stop and the color box. Again, type in 50% for Brightness and click OK on
both windows. To see the dog tag, drag the gradient line anywhere on your document. Now,
let's fill it correctly with the gradient. Go to the top of the shape and press and hold
Shift as you drag the gradient line to the bottom of the shape. Open your Brush Tool
and Brush Picker. Make its Size: 400 pixels and the Hardness: 0%. Make its Opacity: 50%
and the Flow: 100%. Carefully brush once diagonally over the shape. Click the "fx" icon and click
"Bevel Emboss". The Style is "Inner Bevel", the Technique is Smooth, the Depth is 100%
and the Direction is "Up". Make the Size: 13 pixels and leave the Shading at their default
settings. Click "Contour" and open the Contour Picker. Click the gear icon to open your list
of presets. Click "Small List" and click "Cone".
Click "Drop Shadow". Make the Distance: 17 pixels and the Size: 29 pixels.
Then, click OK.
Next, we'll add scratches and wear to our dog tag. Press
"v" to open your Move Tool and open the bare metal texture file that I provided. Drag it
to the tab of your dog tag and without releasing your mouse or pen, press and hold Shift as
you drag it down onto the image and release. Holding Shift kept the metal texture centered
over the document. Change its Blend Mode to Soft Light. Presently, the bare metal texture
is covering our entire document. To restrict it to just the dog tag, we need to make the
bare metal texture into a clipping mask. To do this, press Ctrl + Alt + G on Windows or
Cmd + Option + G on a Mac. Now, the bare metal texture is effecting just the one layer under
it instead of all the layers in the Layers panel. In part 2, we'll complete our military
dog tag by stamping text into the metal.
This is Marty from Blue Lightning TV. Thanks for watching!