- [Instructor] Photoshop is among the most useful tools
for graphic designers.
In this tutorial, you'll learn five tips,
including how to create more vibrant gradients,
turn selections into vector paths,
create patterns with the hidden pattern maker tool,
using smart placeholder photos,
and creating curved text without warping.
Watch this video and you will learn
five Photoshop tips to improve your workflow.
How to create more vibrant gradients.
Gradients with contrasting colors can look flat,
for example, this gradient has bright colors
on the sides, but it looks dull in the middle
and as you can see when we sample the colors,
the vibrancy dips in the middle.
To fix this, we can add a color
to the middle of the gradient.
Start by editing your gradient with the gradient editor,
add a point in the middle, then edit the color.
Pick a color that is between the two gradient colors.
For more natural results,
make sure that you're picking the color
that is less vibrant than the other two colors.
Here's how it looks before and after.
As you can see, adding a third color to the gradient
makes it look more vibrant.
How to turn selections into vector paths.
Photoshop has some great tools for creating selections,
but what if you wanna convert it to a vector shape?
Here's how to do it.
You'll first need to have a selection tool active,
any selection tool will work
whether it's a lasso or rectangle.
Right click inside the selection,
then select make work path.
You'll get a window with a tolerance setting,
enter a number from zero to 10,
the lower the number, the more accurate it is,
but it will also add more points.
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I like to start off with three,
if you need to change this,
simply undo and open the make work path tool again.
To turn the path into a shape layer,
go to the layers panel,
click on the new adjustment layer button
and select solid color or gradient.
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How to find the hidden pattern maker tool.
Photoshop has a hidden tool
that makes creating seamless patterns easy,
here's how to find it.
Start by opening the image
that you want to turn into a pattern,
don't worry about cropping it, we can do this later.
Go to the libraries panel.
If you don't see this,
you can open it by going to window, libraries,
click on the plus button,
then select create from image.
Here you can choose the pattern style
and adjust the scale and rotation.
When you're ready,
click on the save to CC libraries button,
the pattern will appear in your libraries panel.
To use the pattern,
simply double click on the thumbnail
and it'll be placed into your document
as a pattern layer.
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Licensing stock photo in Photoshop.
To avoid spending money unnecessarily,
you can create your design
with free, low-resolution placeholders
and buy it when you're done,
but this causes extra work
because you have to replace all of the placeholders.
But there's a solution to this.
Before we begin, note that this feature only works
with Adobe Stock.
On the Adobe Stock website,
find a photo that you wanna use.
Below the title, you'll find a button
that's says open in app,
click on this and select Photoshop,
the image will then be placed into your Photoshop document.
When you're done with the design
and you want to license it,
simply go to the properties panel
and click on the license asset button.
After purchasing it,
your placeholder will be updated automatically
and you've just saved yourself a lot of time and effort.
Curved text without warping.
Photoshop has a warp text tool
that lets you curve text,
it's easy to use,
but unfortunately the text becomes distorted.
A better way of doing this
is to create a text path, here's how to do it.
From the toolbar,
select the ellipse tool,
select path from the options bar,
this will make a created path
instead of a shape layer.
Draw an oval by dragging from the center of your document,
next, press control, command T on Macs
to activate the transform tool.
This will make it easier to size
and position the curve.
Position the curve where you want
your text to appear,
then press enter to apply it.
If your path disappears,
you can bring it back by going to the paths panel
and selecting the path.
Switch to the text tool.
Before you start typing,
click on the align center button in the options bar,
this'll make it easier the move the text.
Now that we have that set, let's start typing.
Click on the path and type in your text.
To move the text,
select the path selection tool,
drag the text to your desired position.
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We're done.
As you can see, the text is curved without warping.
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Thank you for watching.
For more great tutorials,
visit our website at www.photoshoptutorials.ws.
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