Vector Art in Elements 8

STEP ONE: Start by going under the File

menu, choosing New and creating a new
document that is 7 inches wide by 9.5 inches
high at a resolution of 72ppi (this is screen
resolution and is too low of a resolution to use
to make a print, but for the sake of the tutorial
PSE will work faster). Press D to set your
Foreground colour to black, then press X to
make white your Foreground colour. Click on
the Foreground colour swatch and now change
this white Foreground colour to a pinkish
magenta colour (I used R: 224, G: 28, B: 162).
Press Shift+Ctrl+R to make the ruler appear.
Get the Gradient tool (G) from the Toolbox, and
up in the Options Bar, make sure the Linear
Gradient icon is chosen (the first of the five
icons), then click on the down facing arrow
next to the gradient thumbnail and choose the
top left gradient (Foreground to Background).
Click-and-drag the tool about an inch or so
from the top of your image to nearly the
bottom to create the pink-to-black gradient.
STEP TWO: Create a new layer by clicking
on the Create a New Layer icon at the bottom
of the Layers panel. Set the Foreground colour
to white again, then get the line tool from the
Toolbox (or press U until you have it). Go up to
the Options Bar and set the Weight to 2 pixels,
then select the Add to Shape Layer icon.
Press-and-hold the Shift key and draw a
horizontal line from side to side at about the 3
mark on the ruler(as seen here).

Adapted from: ADOBE PHOTOSHOP CS4 DOWN & DIRTY TRICKS by Scott Kelby c 2009.

STEP THREE: Move your cursor down the

page press -and-hold the Shift key and
draw another horizontal line from side to side.
Use the ruler to measure out lines apart.
Draw 11 lines. Return to the Option Bar and
click on the Simplify button. (Shapes are really
hard to modify in pse so, if we simplify the
layer we can easily change its appearance).

STEP FOUR: Go to the Effects panel and click

the Filters icon, its the first icon that is 3
coloured circles. In the drop down menu (as
seen here) select Distort. Double-click the
Wave thumbnail. In the Dialogue box change
the values to Generators: 3, Wavelength Max:
248, Min: 230, Amplitude Max: 38, Min 34.
This will give you a nice waving flag effect and
dont worry if some of your lines fall short,
were not done yet!

STEP FIVE: Youre going to apply a

perspective effect to both ends of your lines.
First, start by pressing Ctrl-T for Free
Transform. Press and hold Ctrl-Alt-Shift, grab
the top left point and drag downward, which
pinches that side together, creating a
perspective effect (as seen here). Now, do the
opposite on the right side of your lines Press
and hold those keys, grab the top-right point
and this time drag straight up to expand this
side out, which enhances the perspective
effect.

Adapted from: ADOBE PHOTOSHOP CS4 DOWN & DIRTY TRICKS by Scott Kelby c 2009.

STEP SIX: Move your cursor outside the

bounding box and it changes into a two headed
arrow. Click and drag in a counterclockwise
circular motion to rotate your lines like you see
here (its a pretty small amount of rotation). Of
course, this creates a gap on either side of
your lines, so grab the right centre point and
drag it to the right just enough to where your
lines completely touch the right side of your
image window. Now, do the same thing to the
left side (dragging the left centre point to the
left) until the lines fill the image area from left
to right.
STEP SEVEN: Now, press Enter to lock in your
transformation, so your lines look like the ones
here and then open the cell phone image you
see here from the Hand-Out Directory

STEP EIGHT:
Go to the Layers panel and
change the layer blend mode from Normal to
Overlay to have your white lines pick up the
colours from the pink gradient theyre sitting
over (as seen here). Now get the Move tool
(V), go over to your cell phone document and
drag that phone over onto your main
document (Ive put it on its own layer for you).
Use Free Transform to resize the phone image
and position it like you see here.

Adapted from: ADOBE PHOTOSHOP CS4 DOWN & DIRTY TRICKS by Scott Kelby c 2009.

STEP NINE: Press Ctrl-J to duplicate your

phone layer, then bring up Free Transform
(Ctrl-T). Were going to create a reflection. Go
under the Image menu, under Rotate, and
choose Flip Layer Vertical to flip this duplicate
layer upside down, then lock in your
transformation. With the Move tool (V), press
and hold the Shift key (to keep them perfectly
aligned while you move things), and then clickand-drag straight downward until the bottoms
of the two cell phones touch (as seen here).
You can already see we have a problem with
the reflection it doesnt quite line up flush
with the phone, so there is a big gap at the
right side of the phone image. Sometimes this
happens, but dont worry, we can just tweak
the reflection to get a more realistic look.
STEP TEN: Bring up Free Transform (Ctrl-T)
again, on this flipped layer. Press-and-hold the
Ctrl key along with the Shift key (again for
alignment) and click-and-drag the right-centre
point upward to skew the right side of your
phone reflection upward, so it meets the
bottom of the original phone (as shown here).
Once you do this, youll have to move your
cursor inside the bounding box and drag
downward a bit, because moving this side of
the phone reflection up actually covers part of
the original phone. Lock in your changes.
STEP ELEVEN: Go to the Layers panel and
drag this reflection layer beneath your original
phone layer. Next lower the Opacity of this
layer to 70%. Press D then X to bring black to
the foreground. Ctrl-click on the reflection
layer thumbnail. Click on the Adjustment layer
icon at the bottom of the Layers panel and
select Gradient. Double-click the Gradient
image in the Gradient Fill Dialogue box to open
the Gradient Editor. Select the second square
from the top left (Foreground to Transparent).
In the Gradient Type box click on the top left
black square and slide it towards the right until
the location reads 65. Click on the white
diamond next to the black square and slide it
of the way to the white square. This applies
Adapted from: ADOBE PHOTOSHOP CS4 DOWN & DIRTY TRICKS by Scott Kelby c 2009.

a gradient which will make the reflection fade

away (as shown here).

STEP TWELVE: Now, open an image with some

vector-looking garden elements (you can open
this one from the Hand-Out Folder). Get the
Lasso tool (L) and draw a very loose selection
around the shape at the top (as shown here).
Switch to the Move tool and click-and-drag that
area over onto your phone document and then
in the Layers panel, position it beneath your
phone reflection layer. Were going to position
these garden elements behind the phone, as if
theyre coming out the sides. This particular
shape looks like it should be vertical and were
going to position it on the left side of the
phone, which means were going to have to:
(a) rotate it, so its tall, (b) flip the image, so
the stems are coming out from behind the
phone, rather than into the phone, (c) get rid of
that white background and (d) change the
colour of the elements to white. Luckily, this is
a lot easier than it sounds.
STEP THIRTEEN: Bring up Free Transform on
this garden elements layer, then go under the
Image menu, under Rotate, and choose Layer
90 Left to make your image tall. Go back
under the same menu, but this time choose
Flip Layer Horizontal, to flip the image so that
it now appears as though everything is coming
out from behind the phone (as shown here).
Now, position your garden elements as shown
here, and then lock in your transformation.
Two down, two to go.

Adapted from: ADOBE PHOTOSHOP CS4 DOWN & DIRTY TRICKS by Scott Kelby c 2009.

STEP FOURTEEN: Press Ctrl-I to invert your

image, so now your garden elements are white
and your background is black (if you look at the
thumbnail of this layer in the Layers panel, you
can see that here). To hide that black
background (so you just see the white
elements), go to the Layers panel and change
the layer blend mode to Screen (as shown
here), which gives you the look you see here.
Now that the elements are solid white, we want
them to blend into the background a bit more.
We cant change the blend mode to do that,
because we are already using Screen mode to
ignore the black background, so instead, just
lower the Opacity to around 50% (Youll see
how this looks in the next step).
STEP FIFTEEN: So thats the process were
going to use for the other two pieces of vectorlike art were going to add. Put a loose
selection around each one, drag each one over
to the phone document , see if they need to be
rotated or flipped , then invert them (To make
them white) or leave them as is (to leave them
black, where youd choose Multiply as your
blend mode to ignore the white background).
For the art at the bottom right of the phone, I
rotated it a bit, inverted it, changed the blend
mode to Screen, and lowered the opacity. For
the black elements at the top right, I flipped it
horizontally and scaled it in size a little (using
Free Transform), but I didnt invert, because I
wanted them to stay black. I just changed the
layer blend mode to Multiply.

Adapted from: ADOBE PHOTOSHOP CS4 DOWN & DIRTY TRICKS by Scott Kelby c 2009.

STEP SIXTEEN: Now that all the elements are

in place, go to the Layers panel, click on your
lines layer and with the Move tool move them
up (or down), so they fit the composition
better. If you want to add some more little
garden vector shapes, there are already some
in Photoshop. Create a new blank layer at the
top of your layer stack, then set your
foreground colour to a bright green (I used R:
156, G: 199, B:81). Get the custom shape tool
(press Shift-U until you have it), then click on
the shape thumbnail in the Options Bar to get
the Shape Picker. In the Picker, click on the
little right-facing arrow in the top right corner.
From the flyout menu, choose Animals to get
the butterfly and Ornaments to find the leafy
shapes (Butterfly, Leaf Ornament 3 and Floral
Ornament 1). Click-and-drag out these shapes
on the new layer (or put each on its own layer
if you want more control over where you place
them).
STEP SEVENTEEN: Its time to add the text. To
make room at the top youll have to move
everything else down a little. So, go to the
Layers panel and shift click on every layer
(except the background layer). Then, get the
Move tool and use the Down Arrow key on your
keyboard to move all your layers down
together. Move everything down enough so
you can add two lines of text in the upper right
corner. Get the Horizontal Type tool (T), set
your foreground colour to white, your font to
Franklin Gothic Medium Condensed. Type,
The phone youve and commit the text. Click
below the first line and type, been waiting
for. Use your Move tool to adjust the
placement of the text. At the bottom type
Sony Ericsson Skyone. Finally the reflection
is a little distracting, so lower its Opacity to
about 40% to give you the final image seen
here.

Adapted from: ADOBE PHOTOSHOP CS4 DOWN & DIRTY TRICKS by Scott Kelby c 2009.