SemiPro Tutorials

Files Needed

Faux Snow Font

Step 1

Make a 300×300 document and fill it in with #c01904. Make a new layer and call it Box; and select the Selection Tool and set the shape to Square and make a selection. Fill it with #168de4. This is what I have.

Move it where you want it in-case it’s not centered or placed properly. Save the selection to the alpha channel. De-select.

Step 2

Make a new layer and call it Ribbon. Using the selection tool, set to Rectangle, make a tall-vertical-skinny selection, like the one below, and fill it with #d02114. Move it to the center of the present.

Load your selection from the alpha channel and press CTRL+SHIFT+I to invert the selection, to select everything but the cube, and press the delete key on your keyboard (make sure your on the ribbon layer!). This will get rid of that access ribbon we don’t need.

Step 3

Now I found out there isn’t enough space on top of our image so we gotta fix this. Go to Image > Canvas Size and put the width on 300 (we don’t wanna change the width), height on 350, and in the placement tab make sure top is 50, and the rest 0. You can also press the middle-bottom arrow button.

Now go to the background color layer and fill the empty space in with the dark-red color (use the dropper to select it). Now make a new layer and drag it to the top.

Step 4

Select the pen tool and under mode, select “Freehand Draw”. Now make a shape simular to the one below. This will take trial and error, it took me several times to get a good design. Also be sure to have the color red of the ribbon selected.

And this is what it looks like when your done. It’s much smoother.

Step 5

This step is for tweaking. It will take some time to tweak this to look just right. Move around the nodes to make the shape look better, and you can CTRL+Click (left mouse button) to add more nodes for even more control.

Here I duplicated the layer and mirrored it (Ctrl+M) and merged them together (top layer > merge > merge down).

Now I added a small lump in the center, sort of like at knot.

And now I added a nice soft drop shadow, it makes it look more 3D and help distinguish it from the rest of the present.

Step 6

Now add a new layer. With the pen tool again, set the color to a black-to-transparent gradient (you might have to set your foreground color to black FIRST before going into the gradient panel). Make a shape like this and tweak it accordingly. And when your happy with it duplicate and flip it and put it on the other ribbon.

Step 7 – Side-step

I felt like the ribbons were to big to resize each layer my 80% and move them up a little bit (make sure “all layers” is turned off in resize options!).

Step 8

Ok lets start on shading. Get the dodge tool and set the opacity to 40, softness to 0, and size to 230. Then click several times in the middle of the box layer. Do the same thing on the bottom-right corner.

Click the middle ribbom stripe later and do the same thing along the sides, but change the size to 70 and right click. What I did is drag my cursor down from outside to middle, sort of to make a triangle shape with shading. This might sound confusing so ignore it and just darken the sides. Ahaha …

Now click the top ribbon layer and left-click to make the tops lighter. Make several passes, each pass moving the cursor up to cover less and less of the actual image. Then make one right-click sweep on the bottom.

Step 9

Make a new layer and put it above the box layer. Load up your selection from the alpha channel and de-select half if it with the selection tool set on Eclipse. Use these gradient settings and fill it in.

Set the layer blending mode to Overlay and lower the opacity to 34.

Step 10 – Side-step

Again I gotta change those ribbons. They are to tall! The more I look at them the more I have to fix them. That’s ok though, might teach you how to change stuff during editing. I just clicked D on the keyboard and dragged the top node down a bit to make it smaller.

Step 11 – Last touches

Just a few more things to do to fix it up. Gonna be quick, grab your hat!

Drop shadow added to the center ribbon and blue box.

Letter “E” snow-flake font added, set to overlay, and opacity lowered.

Added a background gradient and dodged the upper-left corner. Added a star burst (same settings same as step 9).

Conclusion

There you have it, a brand spanking new present! Now don’t open it until Christmas ^-^