 |
|
 |
 |
I'm a real fan of wires and cables in my designs - They just add a certain something special in my opinion, yet remain unobtrusive
enough to avoid becoming a main focal point.
Unfortunately for us, however, the best way to create them uses the Pen Tool in
Photoshop, which is tricky to control without practice.
Still, the best way to learn valuable skills in Photoshop is to bite the bullet,
so here goes...
 |
Step 1: Create a new document in Photoshop around
200px by 200px in size. Create a total of three layers - the
background on the bottom, a wires layer in the middle, and
clips layer on top. Fill the background with white, but leave the
other two layers transparent. Now create your own clips or other
relevant objects in the clips layer. I'm not going to cover how to do that
here (its a wires tutorial after all), but you can make your own quite
quickly anyway. |
 |
Step 2: Now select the Pen Tool
and create two points at the start and end of the wire you would like to
create. No wire is this straight, of course, so we'll take some time adding
a little bendiness. |
 |
Step 3: Using the Add Anchor Point Tool,
add a few points in the middle of the line. Don't use too many.
If you are using paths for the first time, best start out with one point
only, see how
it works, and build on it from there. Now choose the Direct
Select tool and play around with the anchor points to get the bendiness you require.
This isn't as easy as it sounds, but persevere and you will be
rewarded. |
 |
Step 4: When your path is just how you want it,
you need to complete it using the Pen Tool.
To do this, click on one of the two points you made in step 2 and connect it
to the other via an indirect route. Try and put these new points as
far away from the curvy bit as you can - you'll see why very soon! |
 |
Step 5: Go to the paths palette and right
click on your new path. Choose Make Selection and, if your
version of Photoshop has these functions, a feather of 0, but with
anti-aliasing ON. Press OK. Now go back to the layers palette and make
the wires layer active. Select Edit > Stroke from the menu and
stroke a path 8px in width with a colour of your choosing. I opted for
#FF0000. You can now delete the path if you like. If your
new wire is very jaggy, try running through my
anti-aliasing tutorial with a Gaussian blur of 5 to smooth it out. |
 |
Step 6: Now all you have to do is grab the eraser
tool and delete the bits you don't want. A few seconds of work and you
should end up with something like my example on the left. |
 |
Step 7: Nearly there! Just select Layer >
Layer Style > Bevel and Emboss from the menu, with the wires layer still
active, and enter the settings shown here. Then press OK and look at
your nice new 3D wire! |
 |
Step 8: You shouldn't stop there of course.
Feel free to add drop shadows to everything, a funky background, or even
patterned stripes to the wire using pattern overlays (accessible from
Layer Styles). Just experiment and soon you'll be
creating the coolest wires and cables known to man. :) |
- Tutorial written by Man1c M0g
| |  | |  |
|
|
Forum Threads
|
|
|
 Deactivate Account
Author: jerinian
Posted: Oct 02nd, 11:16am
Activity: 1 replies, 880 views
|  |  changes....
Author: supertackyman
Posted: Sep 12th, 2:56am
Activity: 2 replies, 1044 views
| |
| | |
