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This chapter is from the book

Adobe Photoshop CS Down & Dirty TricksAdobe Photoshop CS Down & Dirty Tricks

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This chapter is from the book

This chapter is from the book

Adobe Photoshop CS Down & Dirty TricksAdobe Photoshop CS Down & Dirty Tricks

Learn More Buy

3D Drop Back Logo

When the UPN TV network introduced their new logo, I just assumed they did it in a 3D program, but you can pretty much get the same effect (where it looks like the logo is dropping back, like a one-point perspective effect) from right within Photoshop, thanks to Photoshop's Free Transform Distort feature.

Bigger previews in the Filter Gallery

The preview window in the Filter Gallery is pretty large, but you can make it even larger in two ways. First, the dialog itself is resizable—just grab the bottom right-hand corner of the dialog and stretch outward. Secondly, there's an upward-facing black triangle button, just to the left of the OK button. Click on this button, and the list of effects is hidden from view and the Preview area expands into that space. The good thing is, you can still choose different filters, now you just do it from the pop-up menu just below the Cancel button.

Step ONE. Open a new document in RGB mode. Click on the Foreground Color Swatch in the Toolbox and choose a bright red in the Color Picker (similar to the color shown here). Fill the background with this red color by pressing Option-Delete (PC: Alt-Backspace). Next, press “d” then “x” to set your Foreground color to white. Get the Type tool and create your type (the font shown here is Aurora Condensed from Bitstream).
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Step TWO. Create a new blank layer by clicking on the New Layer icon at the bottom of the Layers palette. Press Shift-M until you get the Elliptical Marquee tool. Hold the Shift key and drag out a circular selection that's larger than your type (as shown here).
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Step THREE. Go under the Edit menu and choose Stroke. When the Stroke dialog appears, choose 16 for your Width, set the Location to Center, make sure your stroke Color is set to white, and then click OK. This puts a white stroke around your circular selection.
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Step FOUR. Press Command-D (PC: Control-D) to deselect. Merge your Type layer and your white circle layer into a single layer by going to the Layers palette and clicking in the second column of the Type layer to link them together (a tiny link icon will appear), and then pressing Command-E (PC: Control-E). Next, press Command-T (PC: Control-T) to bring up the Free Transform bounding box (shown here).
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Changing the size of selections

Any time you have a selection in place, you can make that selection a few pixels larger or smaller by going under the Select menu, under Modify, and choosing Expand (to make your selection bigger) or Contract (to make your selection smaller). There's a weird thing about this function; when you make a large change either way, it doesn't keep the edges sharp and crisp—it tends to round (Anti-alias) the edges a bit, so keep this in mind if you need to grow your selection by a large number of pixels. To see what I mean, draw a square selection, then go under the Select menu, under Modify, and choose Expand. Enter 15 (the maximum is 100) and click OK. Look at the edges of your selection—they're not square anymore, they're sort of rounded off at the corners. I haven't found a way around this; I try to keep my expansions to only 3 or 4 pixels and it works just fine.

Step FIVE. Hold the Command key (PC: Control key), click on the top-left corner point of the Free Transform bounding box, and drag down and to the right (you're dragging diagonally inward), and the logo will tip back (as shown here).
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Step SIX. Press Return (PC: Enter) to lock in your transformation and to complete the effect (as shown here).
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