hello everyone this is Chris from spoon graphics back with another video
tutorial for Adobe Photoshop I've been away over the past couple of weeks
enjoying a road trip around Texas which has inspired the artwork for this week's
tutorial follow along with today's how-to guide to create this letter press
style poster with overprint effects authentic poster art of this kind would
traditionally be created by hand on a letterpress print machine where the
transfer of ink from roller to paper would naturally create the texturing and
overprint appearance instead we'll be using Adobe Photoshop to mimic the style
of vintage prints by using digital fonts textures and Photoshop effects along the
way we'll go over some useful techniques for creating type layouts producing
effects that realistically replicate the appearance of printed ink and I'll show
you how layer masks can be used to apply textures that make your clean digital
art look like an authentic handmade print but first if you need to build
your own design portfolio website be sure to check out Wix I recently had the
pleasure of using their service to build a personal site at Chris Spooner comm
the drag-and-drop functionality makes it easy to add all kinds of features
exactly where you want them even advanced elements like contact forms
videos and slideshows without needing to know any complicated code you can build
your site from scratch or use one of their many ready-made templates
there's loads of great layouts for design studios and freelancers head over
to wix.com slash go slash spoon graphics to build your own website today
so it's create your letter press style poster begin by creating a new document
in Adobe Photoshop I'm going for a size of a 2 which is 4 20 by 5 9 4
millimeters to keep the file size down I'm using a resolution of 150 PPI
typically print our work would be created in CMYK mode but this will
prevent Photoshop from realistically simulating the overprint effect instead
use RGB I've used three fonts that are available in the Adobe fonts library so
anyone with the CC subscription can use them follow the links in the description
to activate them so they're all available in your library start tapping
out your quote by setting each word as an individual type Elmen my first word
setting the font wtr French Clarendon click the oil cap setting and the
character panel to set the text to uppercase and change the kerning to
optical to quickly fix most spacing issues scale it up to fit the camera
centrally to easily find the middle turn on snap from the View menu which will
make the elements stick when it's placed near the center the snap setting will
prevent guides from being placed exactly at the letter edges turn off snap then
drag out rulers to mark each side of the text with the move tool activated hold
the Alt key and drag the text element to make a copy edit the text and change the
font I'm using B for scale of the text to fit within the width of the guides
along the top of the text to the bottom of the first word then hold the shift
key and nudge with the downwards cursor key to move it ten pixels at a time
doing so five times for fifty pixels will make it easy to match the spacing
with the subsequent text elements to make another text element copy and
change the wording this time I'm using a script font named case a for the word
Texas skipping the word in for now to compose a neat lay out the script font
doesn't require the all caps setting plus the spacing works best with metrics
this text armor will be scaled to fit so the x height is aligned with a 50 pixel
spacing but the capital t overlaps the other word in order to move the letters
ing to accommodate the word Texas the textile man first needs converting into
a regular pixel layer right click on the layer in the layers panel and choose
rasterize type select the rectangular marquee tool and draw a selection around
those two letters hit command or control and windows + T for transform drag the
bottom handle upwards to squash the letters leaving approximately the right
gap the top edge of the letters might move out of place so use a guide to keep
them in line press command + D to deselect to remove the marquee selection
the final word can then be inserted into the remaining space non uniformly scaled
slightly so it fits perfectly using guides makes it easy to keep
everything lined up correctly that's the type layout complete so let's begin
converting the design into a letterpress style print effect download a paper
texture for the background this is a brown empty old vintage paper
background by Andrea size on Shutterstock open the image and go to
select and all followed by edit and copy close the document and paste the texture
above the background layer so it sits below the text use the command + T
transform shortcut to rotate scale and position the paper texture into place so
it fills the canvas shift and click from the top text layer to the bottom text
layer to select them all then hit command + E to merge them into one if
you want to work non-destructively to preserve your editable text elements you
could instead make a smart object add a solid color adjustment layer and select
a light blue made up of 100% cyan and 20% magenta hold the Alt key and click
between this adjustment layer and the text layer underneath to create clipping
mask most of the two layers together with command + E so the text is
permanently blue distorting the crisp edges of digital art is a great way to
replicate the appearance of old prints where the ink is bled and absorbed into
the paper got to filter noise and median find a low value that subtly rounds off
any hard corners without blowing the text too much I went with 5 pixels next
go to filter distort and ripple choose the settings to large they're just the
amount to around 10% these two filters are very soul but it helped add to the
retro print look choose the blending mode of the layer to multiply to allow
the paper background texture to show through I think that is applied to paper
with the stamping motion tends to be thicker around the edges a quick way to
simulate this is to apply an inner glow layer style don't click the layer to
open up the layer style options click reset to default under in agloe
and bring up the size to around 50 pixels the low of 25 percent opacity
will make this another subtle effect
let's press print sometimes suffer from ink transfer issues that leave tiny
uncoated areas originally this would be a fault of not applying enough ink but
it's become a popular aesthetic of old retro style print effects to simulate
this effect digitally a texture image can be used apply a layer mask to the
text layer then download my free Packer photocopy textures from spoon graphics
which you can find linked in the description these textures have similar
grainy effects with various gray tones which when used within a layer mask will
fade away and erase portions of the artwork to give it a tactile appearance
open up one of the textures I'm using texture number one then select all with
command and a followed by command + C to copy and command and W to close the
texture image in the working document hold the Alt key and click the thumbnail
of the mask in the layers panel to edit its contents press command + V to paste
in the texture then click anywhere around the canvas to exit out of mask
mode the texture is fading out the text too much because the blacks and whites
need inverting use the command + i shortcut to switch them around so the
grainy details of the black parts of the texture that raised the artwork within
the mask to boost the effect to use command + l to edit the levels of the
mask contents bring in the highlights and shadows to increase the contrast
then find the right balance of grainy details and faded areas over printing is
a clever way to create interesting prints with limited colors by applying
one ink straight on top of another it generates the third color is the two
hues of mixed printing two completely different image place onto the same area
generates great overprint effects add a new layer in Photoshop will now create
our artwork for the second color use the marquee tool to draw a border across the
top of the text turning back on snap will make it easier to accurately align
it to the guides use a fill color of red made of 100% magenta and 100% yellow
good to select and deselect or hit command + e to move the selection with
the move tool hold all and drag a copy of the border
keeping the shift key held to will keep it aligned centrally use the shift and
nudge technique to space these elements with the same 50 pixel gap since this
our work is all about Texas a silhouette of the state outline would make a
fitting image to the over prin Google Texas and find this public domain image
from Wikipedia conveniently saved with a transparent background copy it into the
document it's tempting to just scale up the graphic and change the fill color
but if you do the edges will be blurry due to the interpolation of a scaled up
raster image instead hold the command key and click the left thumb nail to
make a selection with the marquee tool active right click and choose make work
path it's like the pen or direct selection tool then press command + T to
scale this vector path which can be resized without affecting the quality of
the outline right-click and choose fill path using the red foreground color that
was already established the Lone Star of Texas can also be applied to the design
using the polygon tool in the settings choose star I've already checked at a
value of 53 percent for the indent sides by value generates accurate proportions
of the star and the flag change the number of sides to 5 then click and drag
out a star graphic holding shift and dragging upwards to make it straight
select all the layers that contain red artwork and merge them into one with
command + E begin applying the same effects as the blue layer starting with
ripple since it's already there at the top of the filter menu then median to
change the blending mode to multiply which simulates how the colors would mix
in ink to produce an over print effect digitally apply the same inner glow
settings and under layer mask and open a different texture I'm using number 8
this time it's like to always command in a copy
with command in C close with command in W then paste with the command + V
shortcuts this takes to contain some blotches which will show up within the
artwork so quickly use the Healing Brush to remove them click away from the
canvas to see the mask in action invert the colors with command and I then alter
the levels with command + L if you need to move the texture independently of the
artwork click the little chain icon to separate them then you can use command +
T to move the texture around to find the best spread of details the final result
is a colorful over print poster with letterpress print effects well this kind
of poster art which traditionally be hand made with old printing methods we
can simulate the effects of ink transfer and bleed with a few Photoshop filters
and textures if you enjoyed this tutorial and say new tricks be sure to
give the video a like if you liked the look of this design consider picking it
up as a t-shirt from mighty store subscribe to the spoon graphics YouTube
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yourself all my free design resources as always thank you very much for watching
I'll see you in the next one