In this easy tutorial, we will teach you how you can create your own flashy product advertising flyer design using Adobe Photoshop. This should give you some initial tips and tricks to get you started on more modern looking and effective full color flyers.

1.     We first start with the document setup. Create a new document once Adobe Photoshop opens by pressing CTRL+N.  Set the width and height to your flyer’s dimensions. In this example we are going to use an 8.5×5.5 inch flyer dimension at 300ppi resolution. Switch the color mode to CMYK color, especially if you plan to have your design printed with a four color printer.

2.     Great, now to be safe with our printing, we place in some margins. Bring up the rulers if they are not visible by pressing CTRL+R.  Click from the rulers to the canvass to drag a light blue guideline into your document. Calculate around a quarter of an inch margin for all the sides of our document.

3.     Great! Now as a base for our background we use the gradient tool to add a black and dark grey color gradient to our initial background layer.

4.     Next, we will be processing our image feature for the flyer. In this case it is an image of a fancy tablet gadget. We got this from morguefile.com. Now, you can process the image either as its own document or within the flyer design document as you see fit. To make things easier though, we process it in its own document. Using the magic wand tool or the magnetic lasso tool, we select its shape/form and copy the device so that we can paste it without the background to our design.

5.     Now, we just paste in the gadget to the layout. Make sure to scale it properly by pressing CTRL+T and then resizing the image whilst holding the SHIFT key. Place it at the center of our design.

6.     Next, using the pen tool create some nice curved lines across the product. Make sure you click and drag the anchor points of the pen tool so that you get some nice curves.

7.     Now, create a new layer by pressing CTRL+SHIFT+N. Next, click on the brush tool.  Set it to round 5px brush with a white color. This will be a preparatory step. Also make sure that the hardness of the brush is set to 100%.

8.     Next, bring up the pen tool again by pressing P. Right click on the path we just selected and click on the option “stroke path…”. In the small window that opens, select brush and click on the option to simulate stroke pressure. Click on OK afterwards.

9.     Great! Now you have a nice light streak across our device. Now, there are several ways to do this mind you. The easiest for newcomers to go for would be to use layer styles. Just double click on the streaks layer, then on the window that opens, click on the option “color overlay”. Change the color to the color that you want by just clicking the color box.

10.  Now, to add a fiery streak appearance, we also click on the “Outer Glow” option in the layer styles. We choose a bright red color for the glow, with a size of 5px.  Press ok once you are done, and you have a nice fiery streak.

11.  Great! Now, duplicate this fiery streak by pressing CTRL+J with the layer selected. Then hide the original streak first as a backup just in case you make a mistake. Select our duplicate streak and go to Filters -> Blur -> Motion Blur.  Set the distance to 10 pixels. Also, adjust the angle by clicking on the round angle icon. Change the value until you get a nice blurred effect in some parts of your streak, whilst it is still solid on the others. This all depends on now you composed your steak of course. For our example we used a -7 angle.

12.  Once you are satisfied with your blurs, duplicate the blurred streak 2 more times to get a total of 3 blurred streaks. Nudge the copies several pixels downwards by using the arrow keys, with one being further from the original than the other. You should get a nice parallel streak effect. Group this together in a layer group to make them easier to control. Just click on the create layer group icon below the layers panel and drag the streak layers there.

13.  Great, now we will erase some of the streak lines to simulate that they go behind our product device.  To do this hold down the CTRL key and click on the layer thumbnail image of our device. This will select the area of the device. Now go through each of the streak lines and erase the areas that are supposed to go behind the device. Of course, to make things look convincing, make sure to also leave some streaks overlapping the image.

14.  Great! Now, remember the original streak that we used as a backup earlier? Make that visible once again. Press CTRL+T and then right click on it to bring up the transform context menu. Select “warp” and warp the original streak to add another streak area to our design.

15.  Then, just use the same process of duplication, motion blur and erasing to recreate our original streaks set but in a different position and orientation.

16.  Now, create a new layer just below the device image layer by pressing CTRL+SHIFT+N. Fill this layer with black by using the paint bucket tool. Then, go to Filter -> Render Lighting Effects…  Set the style to RGB lights. Change the position of the lights using the preview box, position them to add a spotlight to our device. Change the exposure to over 100.

17.  Then, change the blend mode of this layer to Screen and reduce its opacity by 50%.

18.  Next, create another new layer. We will be adding some twinkles near our streaks. Use the brush tool here with a light orange or light yellow color. Right click on the canvass and choose “Starburst” brush which should be available as a standard brush in Photoshop CS4. Use this brush to paint twinkles in your design. If you want you can also vary the size and color of these twinkles.

19.  Then, we shall add some extra emphasis lines just under the device again. Create a highlight rectangle by using the rectangle tool to go from top to bottom of our design. Then, use the eraser tool to erase one side of it. Use a round soft brush to do this.

20.  Then, reduce its opacity to 20%. Duplicate this layer 2-8 times by pressing CTRL+J. This all depends on how many of these shapes that you want.

21.  Then, change the position of those duplicates to add a creative highlight effect for the central product.

22.  Finally, we just add in some text for the flyer. Make sure you use sans serif fonts for the best result. Here we are using Impact as the font style.

23.  Now, using the same process with the light streaks, we add a red stroke layer style to make it a bit more fiery. We duplicate the text. Then, we also add the same Motion Blur settings for the duplicate text to make it look fuzzy. We then reduce the opacity so that the original text still stands out. You should be able to get this interesting effect.

FINAL IMAGE

That should finish your sleek, modern and stylish looking product advertising flyer. Hope you have learned a lot from our tutorial. Good Luck!

Hope you enjoy the tutorial! Swing by PrintPlace Tutorials to find more of this.

1.     Let us start by setting up our flyer document. In this example we are creating a portrait flyer with the dimensions 4.25×5.5 inches. For printing, a 300 ppi resolution minimum is required for high quality printing. You might also want to change the color mode to CMYK, especially if you plan on having this printed professionally.

2.     Once the document is open, we then paste in our primary feature image. In this case Tibcris in flickr here.

3.     To extend the background a bit, we filled the actual background layer with black. Then, we erased the right part of the main image with large and soft eraser via the eraser tool. It is in this space that we will add the text and effects later.

4.     Now, create a new layer by pressing CTRL+SHIFT+N. Name it any layer name you like. Using the gradient tool, apply a Radial Color Gradient of your choice unto our canvass. Do not worry about it  covering our model now. Just make sure you position the radial gradient correctly unto the canvass.

5.     Next, change this layer’s blend mode to “Color”. This applies the colors of the gradient unto our main model image below for a nice creative effect.

6.     Great! Now the next step is to add some details. In our example, we are making this in time for the “Spring” Fashion season. So we add some nice floral custom shapes. These shapes are easily accessible from the Custom Shapes list in Photoshop.

7.     Then, alter the opacity value of those different shapes so that they embed well with the colors and theme that we have for your full color flyer.

8.     Good, now we will add an extra interesting effect. First create a new layer and name it “halftone”. Do this by pressing CTRL+SHIFT+N. Then switch to the Channels panel and create a new channel by clicking on the appropriate icon at the bottom of the panel.

9.     Next, use a nice soft brush and paint a few spots of white unto our new channel. Make sure of course that you have the new layer you just created when doing this.

10.  Afterwards, go to Filter -> Pixelate -> Color Halftone. Enter a value of 32 maximum for the Radius, however, you can lower this a bit as you see fit. Once you are satisfied with the settings just press OK.

11.  Once you press OK, you should have a wonderful looking halftone pattern where your white blobs used to be.

12.  Great! Next, hold down the CTRL key and then click on our Alpha 1 channel image thumbnail. This should select all the areas in the channel, now go back to the normal view by clicking on our new layer. Fill the selection with a color gradient from your color themes.

13.  To finish of the creative halftone effect, we reduce the opacity of the layer to around 50%. If needed, you may also erase some parts of the halftone layer so that you can emphasize anything that was blocked by the design.

14.  Afterwards, we will adjust the lightness of the image. Go to Layer -> New Adjustment Layer -> levels. Change the value at the right a bit to lighten our image.

15.  Afterwards, you then start typing in the text for the fashion advertisement flyer. Just choose a nice and clear font style that is easily understandable. Initially, it is best to use white font colors so that they are easier to see.

16.  If you think some of the text is a bit hard to see with the white color, use the rectangle shape tool to create a colored rectangle behind the text. Just reduce the opacity to around 40% and you will help emphasize the text, making clearer and of course more noticeable.

FINAL IMAGE

Once you are done with the text, you should have your nice fashion advertisement flyer done! Congratulations!

Hope you enjoy the tutorial! Swing by PrintPlace Tutorials to find more of this.

In this tutorial, we will teach you how to achieve an old world, renaissance type poster design. Let’s begin.

1. The first step is to setup our document. Once Adobe Photoshop is open, simply press CTRL+N to create a new document. For posters, a portrait orientation is required. The set dimension should be provided to you by your printer. Otherwise, you may want to use standard dimensions. Here in our example, we have used an 11×17 inch dimension at a 300ppi resolution. We used a high resolution as our image will be set for print.

2. Initially, we will work on our background first. A plain white color of course is not enough. Using the Gradient Tool, we paint up our poster background with a dark green gradient like so. For our example we used these colors: (#005952-#012421). Of course, you can change this to whatever color theme that you may like.

3. Then, we paste in a banner vector clip-art. There are plenty of different kinds of FREE vector shapes like this. In fact, if you look at the Photoshop custom shape gallery, you should see plenty of shapes for banners. So just look for something that will fit your theme. Do not worry about the colors as we will work with it. For now though, make sure you scale it properly as a vector. Press CTRL+T and adjust the dimensions and warping as well if needed.

4. Great! Now we will put our theme colors into the banner. Using the magic wand tool, select the white areas of the banner. Create a new layer and then paint the selected sections with a beige color.

5. Now, we will dirty up this base color for the banner a bit. Using the Burn tool we will darken our banner with some “dirt”. To do this, we are using some grunge brushes that we got for free over the Internet. Here we are using T9 Dirty Sprays.

6. Next, we are going to use the dodge tool. This time, a large soft white brush is needed. We will lighten the central area of the banner to simulate some subtle light that comes from the forward area of the design.

7. Now, hold down the CTRL key and click on the image thumbnail of our light colored banner layer. This will select the area that it spans. Go to Select -> Modify -> Contract. In the window that opens choose 5-8 pixels depending on how large or small your banner is. This will reduce the selection a bit.

8. Then, with a new layer selected, fill the selection with a dark green color. You will see that our base color will become a border whilst the top layer becomes our main banner area.

9. Good! Now just like before, use the burn tool again to darken the edge parts of the banner, whilst subtly leaving the central area lighter. This gives us a very subliminal kind of emphasis that is great.

10. Next, select the original banner vector layer again. Use the magic wand tool to select the bottom black parts of our banner. Create a new layer and then with those black areas selected and the new layer active paint it a dark blue (or a theme color of your choice),

11. Then, once again, using either the dodge tool or the burn tool, use grunge brushes too add lighter and darker variations in this bottom area of our banner.

12. Now, using the type tool, write in the title to be placed into the banner. Make sure that you use a font that is appropriate for the theme. Here we are using a script font named Arabella. Color it close to the border Hue of the banner.

13. Now, click on the “Warp Text” icon in the text attribute menu bar that appears when you have text selected,. Change the style to “Arc”. Then adjust the bend so that the bend of the text matches our banner.

14. Great! Now, we are going to make our text look a lot more golden. To do this we will be using five layer styles and blending options. So double click on our text to get us started. Once the layer styles window is open, first click on “inner shadow”. Then change the values as follows:

a. Blend Mode : Multiply, Color: #ffeab6
b. Angle: 120 degrees
c. Size: 13

15. Next, click on Inner Glow. Change these values:

a. Size: 13
b. Contour: “Rounded Steps”
c. Range: 50%

16. Afterwards, click on Satin. Use these properties.

a. Blend Mode: Linear Dodge (Add), Color: #ffda75
b. Opacity: 52%
c. Angle: 19 degrees
d. Distance: 15px
e. Size: 97px
f. Contour: Gaussian, Click on “Invert”

17. Click also of course on “Gradient Overlay”. Change the values to these settings.

a. Opacity: 4
b. Gradient Color: #97461a-#fbd8c5-#6c2e16-#efdbcd

18. Finally, click on “Stroke”. Use these values.

a. Size: 3px
b. Color: #32424a

19. That should finish our banner design. It should look something like this.

20. Next, we work on the background. To make things easier, we created a new layer group named banner and shifted all the banner layers to this group. Then, we disabled its visibility as we work on the background.

21. Now, with our background ready, we paste in a texture to add some detail to it. Here we pasted in a rough wall texture. We de-saturated the texture layer by pressing CTRL+SHIFT+U. Then we changed the blend mode to “Overlay”.

22. To make the background look darker, we created a new layer on top of the texture layer. We filled it with dark grey color, changed its opacity to 40%, and finally we set the blend mode to “Overlay”.

23. The next part is where we process some renaissance type graphics. On a separate document, we opened up a renaissance type sketch. We de-saturated it (CTRL+SHIFT+U) and then adjusted its Levels and the Brightness/Contrast to get it to look like this.

24. We paste in our sketch layer to our poster design. To remove the white, we change the blend mode to “Multiply”. Then we reduce its opacity to around 70%.

25. For more lighting effects, we use the custom shape tool and place in the shape “Tile 2” over our design.

26. Set this shape’s blending mode to Overlay. Then, go to Filter -> Blur -> Guassian Blur. Use a 10 pixel distribution to add a more fuzzy lighting effect to our poster. Once done, erase parts of the edges to make the shadow and lighting effect look more seamless.

27. Next, create a new layer on top of the lights layer. With a very large and soft brush, paint a beige spot in the middle. Set this layer’s blend mode to “Screen”.

28. Duplicate this bright spot by pressing CTRL+J. Then go to Filter -> Distort -> Wave. Use these values:

a. Number of generators: 15

b. Wavelength: 10 -180

c. Amplitude: 3-35

d. Scale 100% both

29. Now, keep pressing CTRL+F to repeat the filter several times. The effect for waves is randomized so you may get a different effect. Just make sure that the waves extend from our central point a bit to make the background more interesting.

30. Create another layer. This time use some grunge brushes in black color to pain some dirt over our bright spots.

31. Change their blending mode to “Overlay” and reduce the opacity to 40%.

32. We add more details still. Here we use the text tool to fill out our poster design with lines and lines of text. This will help us add more texture and add that old world text theme to our poster design. Use a script font for here as well, and a beige color as well.

33. We change the text’s blend mode to “Hard Light”. Then we reduce the opacity by 40%. We also tilted the text a bit by pressing CTRL+T and then rotating text a bit.

34. We will now add a darker border to our poster design. Create another layer on top of our banner group. Use a large soft black brush and brush in a fuzzy border around our design. Change its blend mode to Overlay as well.

35. Now, we will add some cloud effects. Create another new layer on top of all the other layers. Set your foreground color to this color (deb883) and then set the background color to (745222). Then go to Filter -> Render -> Clouds.

36. Change the blend mode of the cloud layer to “Color” and then use an opacity of 45%.

37. We then add our main poster feature image. Since the theme is old world and renaissance, we placed in here a very impressive looking renaissance era Astrolabe. This of course was processed a bit as we removed the background already. We scaled it properly and just placed it at the center.

38. We then add a shadow for our astrolabe. Double click on its layer, and then click on “Drop Shadow”. Change these values:

a. Distance: 0

b. Spread: 20px

c. Size: 30px

39. Then, we just unhide our banner that we did earlier. We place it below our Astrolabe.

40. Great! With all those elements we have finished our great old world renaissance style color poster. You can also apply this design style when designing and printing brochures, postcards or other marketing media.

The war movie poster is typically one of the most dramatic styles when it comes to poster art. In this tutorial we will help you create your own war movie poster using Adobe Photoshop.

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