Once I was playing with my 2 years old nephew in my home garden, my paying guest Noreen approached me from upstairs. She seemed a bit flustered and depressed. She told me that her 22 years old brother Rashid, who had recently found a job in an advertisement agency was suffering from a bad headache and still had some work left to be done till 07:30 PM that evening and the issue, that made the whole prospect even worse, was that he had no clear idea about how to perform the task that could satisfy his boss and his client. As Rashid had been my student for some time so it was obvious that he was expecting my help. I handed my nephew to his maternal grandmother who was staying with us those days and went upstairs to discover the task that was making flustered my ex-student and his sister that much. When I approached there, I found him sitting in front of computer and there could be seen dark circles around his eyes and oil was almost dripping from his head from a recent massage. He told me that he had been instructed to prepare an ad for a beauty soap with a prominent image of a fresh flower with dew drops on it as a symbol of freshness. Further, that ad was supposed to be printed on bill boards within a few hours. Problem was that he had not found any appropriate image so far. There were many images he had collected from different sources but he was not satisfied with any of that. All he wanted from me was to repeat the lesson I delivered as a graphics instructor regarding the illustration of dew drops when he used to be my student at the institution. As he was looking excessively pathetic and a bit ashamed already for ignoring an important lesson, I didn’t reprimand him but explained the whole topic again with detail and after that he managed to create an ad that was proved perfectly satisfactory to his boss and his client.
I have planned this post to explain the same method of illustration of dew drops that I have been explaining to my students for two years or so. For instance in the following image you can see a fresh and nice looking pink rose, that can be used as a symbol of freshness anywhere with slight variations.
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| Symbol of freshness |
If you want variations in the form of the addition of a few glistening dew drops, your problem is going to get resolved by following the tips given below.
How to adorn a flower with glistening dew drops?
First of all open your required image in Photoshop by getting inside the file menu and clicking the option Open or by hitting CTRL + O.
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| Open :Second File Menu Option |
As soon as you will have that image opened in Photoshop, the same image will be appeared in the layer palette as a locked background layer.
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| Background layer in the layer palette |
Then you need to add another layer right above the background layer. For that purpose , hit the small icon that can be seen right beneath the layer window called Create a new layer. As soon as you will click that icon, a new trans parent layer will be appeared in the layer palette right above the background layer.
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| New layer has been added by clicking the small icon called Create a new layer |
After that, select Elliptical Marquee Tool out of the tool window by clicking on it.
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| Elliptical Marquee Tool in the Marquee Tool's Menu |
As soon as you will select that tool, the pointer of your mouse will assume the shape of a plus sign
( + ) and the tool options will be appeared at the top of the window right beneath the menu bar.
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| Option Bar for Elliptical Marquee Tool |
Out of those options, select New selection as selection type, set Feather equals to 0 px , select the Style none other than Normal and leave the check box right beside the option Anti-Aliased unchecked. After that, select the newly added transparent layer in the layer palette by clicking on it and then put the pointer of your mouse on the canvas, keep the left button of your mouse pressed and drag it to make a small circular selection.
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| Circular selection on the image |
After that using Color Picker, select black as foreground and white as background color.
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| Black and white as foreground and background colors |
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| Gradient Tool in the menu |
As soon as you will select that tool, the pointer of your mouse will again assume the shape of a plus ( + ) sign and the tool options concerning the Gradient Tool this time, will be appeared on the top of the window, beneath the menu bar.
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| Setting options of Gradient Tool along with Gradient Picker |
Out of those options, first of all open the Gradient Picker Menu by clicking the small arrow that says Click to open Gradient Picker every time having been hovered over. Out of the Gradient Picker menu select the thumbnail that is referred as Foreground to Background, out of the types of Gradient, select Linear Gradient, out of the drop-down menu called Mode, select the option Normal and set the Opacity equals to 100%. Then put the pointer of your mouse anywhere near the small circular selection , keep the left button of your mouse pressed and drag it a bit diagonally inside the selected area to fill gradient color in it.
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| Gradient color filled inside the circular shape |
After that, get inside the Blending Mode menu for layers, that can be seen right beneath the Layer tab in the layer window and select the option Overlay.
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| Menu containing Blending Modes for the layers |
As soon as you will select that option, the gradient color in the circular selected area will turn perfectly transparent but clearly visible at the same time.
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| Impact of Overlay |
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| Deselect in the Select Menu |
As soon as you will select that option of hit CTRL + D the selection will be removed and you will see a perfectly transparent but a bit embossed circle precisely where there once a circular selection had been.
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| Circular shape after the removal of selection |
Then click the small icon right beneath the layer window that says Add a layer style whenever you put the pointer of your mouse on it.
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| Add a layer style |
As soon as you will click that icon a menu will be appeared containing many different options. Out of those options, select Inner Shadow.
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| Inner Shadow and other layer styles in the menu |
As soon as you will select that option a large window will be appeared call Layer Style. In the left side of that window there will be seen a large rectangular box containing all the styles that were present in the Add a layer style menu under the head of Styles. Further, you will notice that the already selected style in that box will be none other than Inner Shadow.
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| Structure and Quality of Inner Shadow |
Then you need to set the Structure of Inner Shadow. So select Linear Burn out of the menu called Blend Mode, set the Opacity equals to 40%, set the Angle equals to -30, leave unchecked the check box right beside the option called Use Global Light, set the Distance, Choke and Sizeequals to 2px, 0px and 5px respectively. After that, out of the style options given in the same window select Drop Shadow. As soon as you will select that option, setting options of Quality and Structure for Inner Shadow will be disappeared and the setting options of Drop Shadow will be appeared on the right side of the same window
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| Structure and Quality of Drop Shadow |
.Then once again select Linear Burn out of the drop-down menu called Blend Mode, set the Opacity equals to 30 %, set the Angle of the shadow equals to 130o , leave again the check box beside the option referred as Use Global Light unchecked, set the Distance, Spread and Size equals to 10px, 0px and 15px respectively and click OK. As soon as you will click OK , you will notice a few prominent changes in the circular shape, and the styles you have just applied on it will be appeared in the layer palette under the head of Effects.
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| Effects of Inner shadow and Drop Shadow |
Than, add another layer by clicking Create a new layer icon.
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| Three layers in the layer palette |
All you are supposed to do on that new layer, is to put a single small white dot on it to generate glistening effects with the help of Brush Tool. For that purpose first of all using Color Picker, set white as Foreground color.
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| Foreground color selection through Color Picker |
Then select Brush Tool out of the tool window by clicking on it.
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| Brush Tool in the menu |
As soon as you will select that tool, the pointer of your mouse will assume the shape of a circle and the tool options will be appeared on the top of the window right beneath the menu bar.
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| Brush Picker menu along with Mode, Opacity and Flow |
Out of those options, first of all open the Brush Picker menu by clicking the small arrow that can be seen right beside the word Brush in the option bar. Out of that menu, select the brush Hard Round 13px (brush size depends on the size of the drop which we intend illustrate), select Normal out of the Mode Menu, set both Opacity and Flow for the tool equals to 100%. Then put the round shaped pointer of your mouse at the slightly darker and colorful side of the circular shape and click once. As soon as you will click, a white dot will be appeared at the spot and the circular shape will instantly begin to look like a glistening water or dew drop.
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| White dot on the circular shape |
The next thing which is supposed to be done right after that it to make a link between the two top layers and merge them . In order to make a link between the two layer first of all select any one out of both by clicking on it and then click the small empty box that saysIndicates if layer is linked every time you put the pointer of your mouse on it, right beside the other layer.
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| Small box that indicates if layer is linked |
As soon as you will click that box a tiny chain or clip like symbol will be appeared in that box and that will indicate a link between both layers.
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| Link has been created between the two top layers |
After creating a link between the two top layers, get inside the Layer Menu and select the option Merge Linked or hit CTRL + E.
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| Layer Menu containing a host of options |
As soon as you will select the option Merge Linked or hit CTRL + E both layer will get merged with each other and become one layer and the dew drop shaped circular area will change it’s color from transparent to black and white ( Gradient colors we filled in the circle) simply because each newly made layer has blending mode called Normal by default not Overlay or any other.
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| Outcome of two merged layers |
In order to bring it’s transparency back, again get inside the Blending Mode menu for layers that can be seen right below the Layers tab in the layer window and select the option Overlay again.
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| Blending mode for the layers |
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| Dew drop ready to be used |
Then your dew drop will be ready for use. You can make as much duplicates of the layer (that contain the dew drop) as you want by hitting CTRL + J. You can change the size and direction of some dew drops using free transformation tool by following the method I have explained in my earlier post Radial Blur : Remarkable Effects Generator or you can change the position of some drops using Move Tool. Moreover, the Opacity of some drops can also be altered by using the slide given in the Layer window by following the way I have explained in my post Photoshop: Proven help for Interior Decorators. Then decorate the flower image with countless glistening dew drops like the following image.
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| Image ready to be saved |
Then save that image in your required format by getting inside the File Menu and selecting Save As or hitting SHFT+ CTRL + S.
I hope you will find this post interesting and useful. If so, have fun with it, but kindly don’t forget to subscribe your comments.
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