Text on a Ribbon
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This tutorial is intended for beginners to learn how to create a curved ribbon with curved text. If you have any questions, please feel free to Email me.
Remember to save as a psp file often!
1. Open a new image, size 800 by 500 px.
2. Choose the pen tool. Set it to bezier curve, CHECK connect segments, CHECK create on Vector, CHECK show nodes
set width = 3.00
3. Set foreground color = black, background = NULL
4. On the left side of your image. Left-click once AND drag the mouse up and to the right a bit. You will see an arrow form.
5. On the right side of the image, left-click once AND drag up and to the right. An arrow will form on this node, too.
6. This is what my curve looks like now. I am going to adjust the curving.
7. Left-click once ON the left node and that arrow will reappear. Then you can drag the tip of the arrow left or right, or up or down to adjust the curving of the line.
8. Left-click once ON the right node and that arrow will reappear. Then drag the tip of the arrow (or tail) around to adjust the curving of the line.
9. Keep adjust the left and right side of the curve until you are happy with the curving of your line.
10. In the Layer palette, click on the plus sign next to the vector layer. This will open up the layers. Right-click on the NEW PATH and choose Properties.
11. You can change the properties of the path. Change the stroke width = 75, and set the Stroke to the color that you want to make the ribbon. I used a gradient. But you can also use colors or patterns.
12. Choose the text tool, set to FLOATING
13. Hover the mouse over the center of the ribbon until the cursor changes to an A with a curve under it. Then Left-click and type your text. The text should curve along with the ribbon.
14. Right-click on the text layer and choose Promote Selection to Layer. Selection > None
15. Right-click on the ribbon vector layer and choose Convert to Raster Layer.
16. Choose the Mesh Warp tool (this is usually found under the pen tool on the tool sidebar). Set the Mesh horizontal to 15 , vertical to 7 or 15. You may need to adjust these numbers. But what you want is a vertical and horizontal line passing near each end of the ribbon.
17. A mesh with nodes will appear. The nodes are movable. As you move them, it will warp your ribbon. I wanted to pull out the ribbon corner, so I moved the nodes marked with the arrows in those directions. Experiment on yours.
18. Here's the left side of my ribbon.
19. When you are satisfied with the warping, click on the Green Apply CHECK in the top tool bar.
20. Choose the lasso tool. Set it to freehand, feather = 25
21. Now we are going to make some dark areas in places on our ribbon to give the illusion of light hitting it and leaving some shadows. make an irregular selection.
22. Adjust > Brightness and Contrast > Brightness/Contrast Brightness = - 75, Contrast = 0 (You may have to adjust these numbers depending on the color of your ribbon)
23. Repeat the process in Steps 21 & 22 to add shadows throughout the ribbon.
24. When satisfied, save the ribbon as a GIF (File > export > GIF Optimizer)
Please do not remove this tutorial from my site. Share my url.