This will be my first tutorial submitted to this site...probably my first tutorials on how to actually use certain tools and not actually make something specific...so here goes people. OH! And this WHOLE tutorial will be type in 1337...h3r3 g035...he he just kidding.
Anywho...to begin:
Selection tool:
The selection tool can become your best friend. There is 4 different types of selections: Rectangular, Eliptical, Horizontal Row, and Vertical Row. There may be a few new ones in newer version, I dunno because all I have is Photoshop 7.
Rectangular: Makes a square or rectangle selection. You can hold down shift to make it be a complete symetrical square, ctrl to add it into another selection without having to deselect another selection first, or alt to remove some of another selection with it.
Eliptical: The circle one. Same as above with the shift, alt, and ctrl keys. In fact, ALL of the selections use those keys to do the same thing.
Horizontal row: Makes a 1 px height by 100% px width selection. The reason I used 100% is because no matter the size of your canvas, it will select the full width. Good for making scan lines and things though it may take longer than other techniques.
Vertical row: Same as the horizontal row only flip the 1 with the 100%. A 1 px wide and 100% px height selection will be made.
Using these tools in a mixture of ways can get some interesting shapes and forms. You can use alt+Backspace to fill the selections you have. You can also use ctrl+backspace to fill the selection with your background color.
Blending modes: These all cannot really be explained, but this is also best if you cycle through all of the blending modes to determine which looks best. Some of my favorites to use is Overlay or Soft Light because they get soft color changes made and can easily make a nice monochromatic image (using one color with multiple shades of it only).
Transform: There are a few transform tool which are accesable through Edit>Free Transform or Transform. This part will cover what different ones will do.
Scale: Used to basically make an image bigger or smaller, just like what using the Free Transform tool does (it starts with using that one, you can right click on the trasnforming area to switch to another tool whenever you want.)
Rotate: Rotates the transform area. Can be used to spin things around and things like that.
Scale: Used to move only one point on the transform area. Such as, move the bottom right corner freely while all the other points stay still.
Distort: About the same as scale, only the points are alot more free to move around. You can use this to add a slant and perspective to images.
Perspective: You can move one side out and it will do the same for the opposite side. Such as, click on the bottom right corner and move it outward it will also move the bottom left corner outward also. ALSO can be used to give an image a perspective.
Mixing and mastering all of those can really help to make 3D imagery. So I suggest you learn those.
Next will be gradients.
Gradients: Gradients are rather important. You can use these to bland from one color to another easily. You can use these for light rays and other things. Light, shading, just gradually changing colors, whatever. Experiment, easy to master. Use the shift key to make the gradient move perfectly vertical, perfect horizontal, or in increments of 45 degrees between those. So it can go up, up right, right, down right, down, down left, left, and up left.
Blurs: These are good to make a shadow with. Just select all the things you want to have a custom shadow with and make a new layer with all these selections and fill it with black. Use transforms to make the shadows look more realistic and the blur, blur more, or gaussian blur to make the shadow look even more realistic.
Brushes: These can be used to make a more controlled shadow than using a gradient (a shadow INSIDE the shape). Select a brush, preferably the soft round brushes for shading and highlights, whatever size you think is good. Mess with the blending modes, flow, and other things for it. Also try making you own custom brushes to make more unique things. Such as, you can make an easy dotted line using a custom brush.
Eraser: This can be useful if you want to make something fade from 100% transparency to 0% or whatever. Also can be used to fix a mistake, but not really used for that much since you can just use selections and the clear button (delete key).
Pen tool: One big part of vectors. Kinda hard to understand, but really useful if you learn to. Basically, select a starting point and drag in a direction you want the path to go and make another point to where you want the path to lead to and drag in the direction you want THAT point to make the path go. Also, just clicking without a drag will make a straight point. It will take ALOT of practice and while practicing you will probably learn some new things that are not covered in this tutorials, such as how to edit the paths after they are made. Paths will automatically have a curve to certain points, so remember that when using them. A good way of practice is to take an image and use the selection tool to select certain parts of the image, such as someones face, a car, an animal, a computer, a tree, and many other things. You can right click on a path to select the options Make Selection or the option Stroke. With make selection, it will make the path a selection. Not a selection like a 1 px wide path but it will make a selection in the shape of your path. The stroke tool will stroke the path with a certain tool using the foreground color. So if you have a solid round brush with alot of spacing and stoke a path, it will mak a dotted line in the shape of the path. Also, with stoke, if you use the Simulat Pressure option it will create the brushed path but it will start transparent, be 100% transparent by the middle of the whole path, and go back out. So if you were to stretch the whole path out and unwind it all it would just look like a reflected gradientd. There can be many other uses for paths, but those are the only ones I really know of that are really important.
Custom brushes, custom shapes, and other custom things: It is good to have some custom brushes and things while making vectors. You can download them, or you can make them on your own. Either way, they can really help to add textures to things.
Wow...long tutorial. He he. I hope you have a long enough attention span to last through that all and I hope it helps.
If you notice something is missing or anything, please feel free to post about it. I may feel really stupid, but feel free to add your input in. After all, tutorials are meant to help to the full extent and leaving something out and letting it go unoticed wont help that much. Have fun with your vectors. Later,
Your friend (maybe you friend, I do not know. You may be a dick for all I know.),
Ryu Hayabusa.
Last Edit: Sept 17, 2005 14:40:06 GMT by Ryu Hayabusa
