2.From Layer menu, select Flatten Image. Then from image menu, select Rotate Canvas - 90 CW.

3.From Filter menu, select Stylize - Wind. Select Method and Direction Blast From the Left. If still indescriptive, repeat the steps above again.

4.From image menu, select Rotate Canvas - 90 CCW.

5. From filter menu, select Blur - Gaussian blur. Change radius to 2.0 pixels.

6. From image menu, select Adjust - Level. In the Input Levels, setting to 176, 1, and 221.

7.From image menu, select Adjust - Level. In the Input Levels, setting to 167, 1, and 235.

8. With the Magic Wand Tool, select the white area. From select menu, select Similar option. Last from the select menu choose inverse.

9. To enhance the look you can use the Eye Candy. From Filter menu select Eye Candy - Bevel Boss.

In this tutorial I will be demonstrating how to chop and change different faces from one person to another! My method will be simplistic yet powerful for anyone from beginners to those “know-it-alls”.

Before we begin, lets think a bit and prepare.

We need a minimum of two images, of two different people’s faces, this is really up to you, if you want to you can have male/female, old/young, or something normal

Now, a few things you should keep in mind:
1. Make sure the two images have roughly the same resolution and are about the same size, this will make your final product much more realistic and accurate.
2. Make sure the two faces are looking in the same direction, it will look extremely awkward if you have one face looking to the right and try to implement a face looking downwards…
3. Always take proportion into consideration, you dont want tiny facial features on a huge head.

For this tutorial i decided to use Jessica Alba’s face for the main person, and Carmen Electra’s face for the actual facial features.

+ = ?
Click on these images for full resolution images.
Let’s get on with it!

Step 1:
Load up your images, i first loaded up Jessica Alba, then loaded up Carmen Electra, and dragged her into the same document as Jessica Alba. To make things easier, please make sure that you name your layers!

Step 2:
Obviously we need to first look at proportion, we can clearly see that Electra’s head is huge, covering Alba completely. So first of all we need to downsize Electra a bit. Go to Edit > Free Transform, Or just press CTRL+T. Now look at the top of your screen, we want to resize Electra’s face to 55% of the original size, so we type in 55% and 55% for W: and H: respectively.

Press Enter, or click on the tick sign when you are done.

Step 3:
Now its time to position Electra’s face so that it is facing the same way as that of Alba. To make our lives a little easier, we’re going to drop the opacity of layer “carmen” to 50%.

With the carmen layer selected, we are going to free transform again. Go to Edit > Free Transform, Or just press CTRL+T. We want to rotate Electra’s head so that it is tilted more, and looking at us more. We are going to change those values at the top again, but not the scale values, this time we will change the rotate value. Try 15′.

Perfect! You can see from here that their eyes are well lined up and so are the nose and mouth. Dont let the transparent face mess you up, trippy isnt it?

Step 4:
Before we start the whole cutting out business, we want Electra’s face to sit on top of Alba’s properly, so make sure that your move tool is selected (, press V), and make sure that the carmen layer is selected. Now drag it upwards untill everything fits perfectly together.

After we have our allignment correct, go ahead and put the opacity back up to 100%.

Step 5:
This is where all the fun begins! We need to make a selection of Electra’s face, so select the Polygonal Lasso Tool(L), and start clicking around the peripheral of her face.

This should make a nice selection of her facial features. When you have created your selection, click on the Add Vector Mask button in your layers pallete. This one:

And that should cut out the face of Electra, and have it nested nicely on top of Alba’s face.

Step 6:
Time to get rid of unnecesary edges from Electra’s face! This is important: Make sure that the vector mask is selected on the carmen layer:
NOT
Notice the little box surrounding the mask, or thumbnail when selected.

Grab your brush tool(B), and get a nice large soft brush. Also make sure that you have black as your foreground colour.
Dewald’s handy little tip: Press “D” on your keyboard to reset your colour pallete to default!
Now paint around the edge of Electra’s face. Notice whats happening? No… its not an eraser! Its actually hiding the image where you paint, that means that where you paint black, the image will hide, and where you paint white, the image will re-apear! So if you make a mistake, you can quickly grab a white brush and make it come back! That also means that you can come back later and change the face again.

After a while, you should be presented with the lovely Jessica Electra!

Or if you’re lucky enough you might get a Carmen Alba! (Even though she looks a little “sleepy” to me ).

I really hope that you enjoyed this tutorial, and hopefully you learned a thing or two from it. Please dont be shy to leave me a comment on what you think, or if you’re stuck on something!

Using vibrant colors is the best way to make an image stand out, although getting the right balance is not always easy. Here we learn how to use lots of vibrant color to create a slightly abstract photo manipulation using pencils and fruit. We will learn how to use the pen tool effectively and also some freehand brushing which looks good.

Introduction

This is a simple and very effective style but does require some time being spent on it. Although its simple I wont be going into every detail, mainly to let you use your own creativity and also because the tutorial is aimed at people who have some basic knowledge of Photoshop already. Get some ideas in your head and lets get going!

Step 1

Create a new document with dimensions; 1200×1800px. Now you need to find two colorful photos or you can use the ones I did which can be found here and here. Paste both of them into your document then resize and arrange them until your image looks like the one below. If you are using your own images, they will need to have a white background or you’ll have to extract them.

Step 2

Select the pen tool then make sure in the main toolbar that paths is selected. Start at one of the pencils then create a path going to a fruit of the same color. To make the first click at the starting point then click again a bit lower down but this time hold and drag as this will smooth the curve, keep doing this until you have a path similar to the one shown below.

Step 3

Select the brush tool (the path should still be visible) then go to the brush editor and select a 6px round brush with 100% hardness. Create a new layer then just hit return and a dialog box should pop up; select brush and uncheck simulate pressure. You should now have a black curve like shown below.

Step 4

Now we are going to add some detail to it and make it look like goo, below I’ve shown four examples of what it should look like. In each of these I first used the line tool (set at fill pixels in the main toolbar) at about 2-3px and drew a line coming from the curve. I then used a 2-3px round brush and when zoomed in I added some more detils freehand by just brushing slowly, I added drops at the bottom of each line and some beads of liquid as well. This takes time to do but looks great, the same techniques are explained in another tutorial I wrote which you can read here.

Step 5

Now right click on this layer then select blending options and add a gradient overlay. When choosing the colors for the gradient use the eyedropper to select the color from the pencil’s lead and the color from the fruit, in this case the orange. This means that the line will blend in to each of them. YOu may need to select reverse here if your gradient is the wrong way.

Step 6

Create anew layer and do exactly the same with another color; for me I did it with red. Use the tecniques but you can try changing the size of the brush.

Step 7

I used a floral brush to create this detail, lots of these brushes can be found here. After making the shape repeat step 5 on this layer but using red rather than orange. I’ve shown below what mine looked like at this point.

Step 8

Now it’s just a case of repeating these steps with a few more colors, I’ve shown some examples in the next few steps but not gone into every detail. Here I did the same with the yellow pencil but I used a larger brush to stroke the path. I made it look like it was going behind some of the pencils by hiding part of the layer; you can do this two ways, the best would be to use a layer mask but if you’re not familiar with masks then either read a few more of my tutorials or just use the erasor tool. Again add some drips to this layer and change it to yellow to get something like the image below.

Step 9

For the green one I used a smaller brush anfd made it look like it was wrapping round the other lines. I also added another floral brush as these look great.

Step 10

Below I’ve shown what mine looked like at this point in the process. feel free to add more elements in to the picture, I’ve kept it quite simple here just for the sake of this tutorial but just be creative; this isn’t one of those tutorials where I teel you exactly what buttons to push so go wild and experiment.

Step 11

For the blue pencil, I used a line coming from the tip with a few drops on it and a splash at hte bottom created using a splatter brush. Do the same with the gradient overlay but choose a shade of blue as we are not trying to blend it to a fruit here.

Step 12

I did the black similarly but just made it look like a drip landed on the yellow line.

Step 13

For the dark green pencil I just made a line then used an upside down tree brush at the end.

Step 14

I did the purple and pink differently and they took me a while. I made two paths that followed each other but linked to the different pencils then stroked them and did the gradient overlay thing but had to edit them slightly afterwards.

Step 15

Now you’ll want to download a paper texture, there are loads of them free to download everywhere but the one I used can be found here. Paste it into your image then resize it to fit the document roughly, now change the blend mode to multiply and the opacity to 50%. That’s you finished, hope you learned something and manage to find some cool uses for it.

In this easy, step-by-step tutorial I’m going to show you how to design an Olympic Games logo.

Firstly we’re going to make a nice background. Start by creating a new document in Photoshop. I used size of 1600×1200 for this tutorial. Then draw a white to blue (#d2efff) linear gradient similar to this:

Time to get a circle for Olympic Games logo. Start by making a selection with Elliptical Marquee Tool and fill in with the color of #0184c9 like on a picture below:

After that, contract your selection by about 15 pixels (Select > Modify > Contract) now you should be left with a selection like this:

And press Delete to clear area into the selection. Then press Ctrl+J four of times to duplicate layers and move these rings as on picture below:

Apply the next different colors (dark grey #515151, red #d04b09, yellow #dab900 and green #019627) for different rings:

Now to make relief effect use the Blending Options. Do this by first right-clicking the layer in the layer’s palette then going into the Blending Options. When you’re in the Blending Options, click and apply the following layer styles/settings:

Apply these options for all of rings to get a picture like this:

Alright, time to intertwine rings between each other. For this effect go to layer with blue ring, make a selection around it (Select > Load Selection) then expand your selection by about 5 pixels (Select > Modify > Expand) now you should be left with a selection as on a picture below and apply Eraser Tool into the selected area like this:

Then press Ctrl+D to deselect object. Make the same things with other rings from logo.

After making intertwine I would like to add some smooth glare to all objects of logo for bringing reflective surface effect. Again go to layer with blue ring, make a selection around it (Select > Load Selection) then contract your selection by about 4 pixels (Select > Modify > Contract), then create a new layer and draw a white to transparent linear gradient, white at the top and transparent at the bottom into your selection, similar to this:

Then press Ctrl+D to deselect object. Make the same things with other rings from logo to get the next picture:

Now we need to cut away white glare out of rings on the logo. For this make selection around one of rings again (Select > Load Selection) then contract your selection by about 4 pixels (Select > Modify > Contract), press Ctrl+Shift+I to invert the selection and press Del to delete glare out the selection like on a picture below.

Ok, our logo is ready. Now we can add some multicolored lines to our background.
Do this by first finding and selecting the Pen Tool, and make a shape like on the screenshot below:

Then add two more of these lines and lower the layer opacity to 35% for each line. After that going into the Blending Options to change color of lines. When you’re in the Blending Options, click and apply the following settings:

Hello people, today we got a very nice Gold Fashion Effect. Its very simple and good looking, enjoy it!

Step 1:

Choose the photo you want to use, size or quality is not a problem here, but a nice photo is always good.

Step 2:

Now, make right click in your background layer (or the layer with the photo), choose duplicate layer.

Step 3:

(In your duplicated layer), Go to Image - Adjustments - Gradient Map.

Now you have to make a gradient like this:

We are using the following colors: Black ( # 000000 ) Yellow ( # e4ce51) White ( # ffffff )

Now you’ll have this:

Step 4:

Change your duplicated layer Blending Mode and Opacity, choose Screen and 70%.

Step 5:

Press SHIFT + CTRL + E (or go to Layer - Merge Visible)

Now go to Image - Adjustments - Hue/Saturation.

Change the values like this:

Step 6:

Go to Image - Levels.

The following settings are just for reference, try to get a similar result.

Modify the values until you get something like this:

Step 7:

Now select the Dodge Tool:

Now, you can make some highlights to give the photo the final touch.

I highlight the hair, the earrings, the mouth and the eyes.

And our Gold Fashion Effect its done, hope you like it and see you later for more Photoshop Tutorials.

Step 1

Let’s start by creating a New Document which is 1000 pixels wide by 1000 pixels high, set the Resolution to 300 pixels/inch, and the Background to white. Grab the Rectangular Marquee Tool, then set the style to Fixed Size with a Width of 100 px and Height of 240 px. Drag four guides around the selection, as shown in the below image, then Deselect by hitting Command + D.

Step 2

Create a new layer and name it “Front B.” Set the foreground color to 55% gray. Get the Rounded Rectangle Tool, set it to Fill Pixels and Radius to 30 px in the Tool Options set. Draw a rounded rectangle as shown below.

Step 3

Now we’ll clear the guides by going to View > Clear Guides. Hit Command + T to enter the Free Transform mode, set the Vertical Skew to -30 degrees, and apply it. Hit Command + T again and set the Rotation to -30 degrees. We could have skewed and rotated the layer at the same time. The reason why we did it in two steps is that it gives cleaner results. You can have a look at the below image for a comparison.

Now we need two horizontal guides. Drag and snap one to the top and one to the bottom of the transformed rectangle. This is not our final perspective angle, but it’s easier to build up the USB key this way, then we’ll rotate the whole thing again to achieve our final perspective look.

Step 4

Duplicate the “Front B” layer and name it “Front A.” Move the “Front A” layer 30 pixels left. You can do it by using the Arrow keys on the keyboard when the Move Tool is selected. While holding Shift, press the Left Arrow key three times. Apply a Gradient Overlay layer Style with these settings: Blend Mode set to Multiply, Opacity at 100%, Gradient set at Black to white, Style of Linear, Angle set to 90 degrees, and Scale set to 130%.

Step 5

Now we need to connect these two rounded rectangles. Go back to the “Front B” layer in the Layers Palette. Get the Polygonal Lasso Tool and make a selection, as shown in the image below. Make sure the guides are visible. Fill the selection with 55% gray, then Deselect by hitting Command + D.

Step 6

There are some unwanted pixels, lets get rid of them. Grab the Rectangular Marquee Tool, set the Style to Normal, and make a selection, as shown below. Move the selection 1 px down and hit Delete to clear the area. You can move the selections by using the Arrow Keys on the keyboard as long as a Marquee Tool is active. Now make a rectangular selection this time at the bottom. Move the selection 1 px up and hit Delete again.

Step 7

Now we’ll apply a Gradient Overlay Layer Style to the “Front B” layer with these settings: Blend mode set to Multiply, Opacity at 65%, Gradient set at “Steel Bar” (which is in the Metals Set), with a Style of Linear, Angle set to -30 degrees, and Scale at 110%. Also, you can adjust the position of the gradient by dragging while the Gradient Overlay dialog is still open. Adjust the position like in the image as well.

Step 8

Command-click the “Front A” layer thumbnail to load the selection. I moved the selection 400 pixels right. This will define the length of your USB key, so you can change it if you want a longer or a shorter one. Create a new layer and name it “Back.” I filled the selection with color #ee3232, but you can choose a different color according to your own taste.

Now create another new layer and name it “Body.” Fill the selection with 15% gray. Deselect by hitting Command + D. Make the “Back” layer invisible, as we’ll need it later. Drag and place the “Body” layer above the “Background” layer in the Layers Palette.

Step 9

Now we’ll extrude the body as we did for the front part. Get the Polygonal Lasso Tool and make a selection as shown, then fill it with 15% gray. Hit Command + D to Deselect.

Step 10

Get the Rectangular Marque Tool and make a selection aligned to the upper guide, as in the image below. Move the selection 1 px down and clear by hitting Delete. Make another rectangular selection, this time at the bottom, move the selection 1 px up, and hit Delete again to clear the disturbing row of pixels.

Step 11

Now we’ll apply a Gradient Overlay Layer Style to the “Body” layer to achieve the rounded corner. Use these settings: Blend mode set to Multiply, Opacity at 65%, Gradient set at Black to White, with a Style of Linear, Angle set to 90 degrees, and Scale set at 18%. Move the gradient down, as in the below image. You can do it by dragging while the Gradient Overlay dialog box is open.

Step 12

Go to the Layer Palette, then drag and place the “Back” layer just above the “Background” layer. Move the “Back” layer 20 px right using the Right Arrow key. Next, get the Polygonal Lasso Tool and make a selection, as shown below, then fill the selection with red (or your own color) to extrude the back part of the USB key. Hit Command + D to Deselect.

Get the Rectangular Marque Tool and make a selection aligned to the upper guide, as we did before. Move the selection 1 px down and clear by hitting Delete. Make another rectangular selection, this time at the bottom. Move the selection 1 px up and hit Delete again to clear the disturbing row of pixels.

Step 13

We need to apply a Gradient Overlay to the “Back” layer with the same settings as we used for the “Body.” Now right-click on the “Body” layer in the Layers Palette and choose Copy Layer Style. Right-click the “Back” layer and choose Paste Layer Style.

Step 14

Create a new layer above the “Front B” layer and name it “Highlight.” Grab the Line Tool, set it to Fill Pixels, and set Weight to 8 px. Choose white as your Foreground Color, and draw a straight line, as in the below image. Go to Filter > Blur > Gaussian Blur, apply with a Radius of 5 px.

Now we have the highlight, but we should delete the exceeding part. Command-click the “Body” Layer Thumbnail to load it’s selection. We should also select the back part, so Command + Shift-click the “Back” Layer Thumbnail to add to the selection. Go to Select > Inverse and hit Delete to clear. Deselect by hitting Command + D.

Step 15

Create a new layer above the “Body” layer and name it “Reflection.” Grab the Gradient Tool, set the Gradient to black to white, and fill the layer with the gradient from left to right. Go to Image > Adjustments > Curves and tweak the curve as shown below. This is my favorite way to make reflections. Then hit Command + T and rotate the “Reflection” layer 30 degrees. You’ll see why we’re doing this later.

Now because we want that reflection to be seen on the “Body” part, we need to get rid of the rest. Command-click the “Body” Layer Thumbnail to load the selection. Command + Alt-click the “Front B” Layer Thumbnail to subtract it from the current selection. Go to Select > Inverse and hit Delete to clear. Hit Command + D to Deselect. Set the Layer Blending Mode to Overlay.

Now get the Eraser Tool. Make sure the mode in the Tool Options is set to Brush. I set the Brush Master Diameter to 215 and Hardness to 25%. Erase the area below the rounded corner.

There are some painted pixels outside the canvas because we filled the whole page and then rotated the gradient. We can’t see them at the moment. In the final steps we’ll rotate the USB key and these pixels will be a problem so to get rid of them. Go to Select > All, then go to Image > Crop.

Step 16

We start drawing the plug. Command-click the “Front A ” layer to load the selection. Create a new layer above the “Front A” and name it “Plug.” Fill the selection with 25% gray. Deselect by hitting Command + D. Hit Command + T to enter Free Transform mode, set the Vertical and Horizontal Scales to 56%, and apply.

Step 17

Duplicate the “Plug” layer and name it “Plug Front.” Move the “Plug Front” layer 150 pixels left. Drag two guides from the upper Ruler and snap them to the top and bottom of the “Plug” layer. Go back to the “Plug” layer in the Layers Palette, get the Polygonal Lasso Tool, and make a selection as in the below image. Fill the selection with 25% gray, then deselect by hitting Command + D.

Step 18

Get the Rectangular Marque Tool and make a selection aligned to the upper guide, as shown below. Move the selection 1 px down and clear by hitting Delete. Make another rectangular selection, this time at the bottom, move the selection 1 px up, and hit Delete again to clear the disturbing row of pixels.

Step 19

Command-click the “Plug” layer Thumbnail, this will load the selection. Get the Gradient Tool, set the Gradient as Foreground to Transparent, set Foreground Color to black, and Gradient Style to Linear. Drag it, as shown below, to fill the selection with a black to transparent gradient. This will make the upper part of the plug darker, which is going to help us achieving the metallic look.

Hit Command + D to Deselect. Apply a Gradient Overlay Layer Style with these settings: Blent Mode set to Multiply, Opacity at 50%, Gradient set at Black to White, Style of Linear, Angle set to 90 degrees and Scale set to 18%. Move the Gradient down until it fits on the rounded corner, as in the below image, while the Gradient Overlay dialog is still open.

Step 20

Create a new layer above the “Plug” layer and name it “Plug Reflection.” Get the Rectangular Marque Tool and make a selection, as in the image below. Get the Gradient Tool. Set the Gradient to Silver (it’s in the Metals Set.) Set the Gradient Style to Reflected and fill the selection starting from the middle to the left. Hit Command + D to Deselect. Go to Image > Adjustments > Invert to get the negative.

Step 21

Hit Command + T, then Scale the reflection a bit horizontally and rotate 30 degrees. Now we want to reflection visible only on the plug. So we’ll define the “Plug” layer as a Clipping Mask for the “Plug Reflection.” You can do it by Alt-clicking the line between these two layers in the Layers Palette. Get the Eraser Tool. Erase the area below the rounded corner of the plug. Also, set the layer Blending Mode to Screen.

Step 22

Create a new layer above the “Plug Reflection” layer and name it “Plug Highlight.” Get the Line Tool, set it to Fill Pixels, and set Weight to 4 px. Also, set white as your Foreground Color. Draw a straight line, set Weight to 2 px and draw another line, as in the below image.

Go to Filter > Blur > Gaussian Blur, apply with a Radius of 1.5 px. Command-click the “Plug” layer to load the selection, then go to Select > Inverse and clear by hitting Delete. Set the “Plug Highlight” Layer Opacity at 60%.

Step 23

Now we’ll make the hole on the plug. Command-click the “Plug Front” layer to load the selection. Go to Select > Modify > Contract and contract the selection by 2 pixels. Create a new layer above the “Plug Front” layer and name it “Plug Hole.”

Fill the selection with 25% gray and apply a Gradient Overlay Layer Style with these settings: Blend Mode set to Multiply, Opacity at 40%, Gradient set at black to white, with a Style of Linear, Angle set to -90 degrees, and Scale at 13%. Move the gradient until it fits on the rounded corner of the plug.

Step 24

Create a new layer named “Plug Hole Shadow” just above the “Plug Hole” layer. Grab the Polygonal Lasso Tool, select an area as in the below image, and fill with black. Hit Command + D to Deselect. Go to Filter > Blur > Gaussian Blur. Set the Radius to 15 pixels. Command-click the “Plug Hole” layer, go to Select > Inverse to inverse the selection. Clear by hitting Delete. You should adjust the Opacity of the layer to your taste as well.

Step 25

Create a new layer above the “Plug Hole” layer and name it “White.” Command-click the “Plug Hole” layer. Get the Rectangular Marque Tool and move the selection, as shown below. Command + Alt + Shift-click the “Plug Hole” Layer Thumbnail to intersect the selection, then fill the selection with white, and hit Command + D to Deselect. Move the “White” layer 5 pixels right. Drag horizontal guides and snap them to the top and the bottom of the “White” layer.

Step 26

Create another layer below the “White” layer and name it “White Top.” Get the Polygonal Lasso Tool and make a selection, as shown below. Fill the selection with 20% gray. Command-click the “Plug Hole” layer, then go to Select > Inverse to inverse the loaded selection. Hit Delete to clear the part outside the hole. Go to “White” layer in the Layers Palette and hit Delete again. Hit Command + D to Deselect.

Step 27

Select the Layers in the Layer Palette, as shown below. Go to Layer > Group Layers (Command + G.) Name the group “Plug Bottom.” Now duplicate the “Plug Bottom” group and name it “Plug Top.” Go to Layer > Merge Group. Make the “Plug Bottom” group invisible for now.

Step 28

Now we’ll make the reflection of the plug on the body. Duplicate the “Plug Top” layer, name it “Plug Reflection,” and drag it above the “Front A” layer in the Layers Palette. Move it right, as shown below. Go to Filter > Blur > Gaussian Blur and apply with a Radius of 3 pixels. In order to mask the reflection, Alt-click on the line between the “Plug Reflection” and the “Front A” layers in the Layers Palette. You can change the opacity of the layer as you wish.

Step 29

Let’s continue tiding up our layers. Select all the layers except the “Background” and “Plug Top” layers and “Plug Bottom” Group. Go to Layer > Merge Layers (Command + E.) Rename the merged layer as “Body.”

Step 30

Now we’ll make the two small holes on the plug. Create a new layer on the top of the layer stack named “Hole.” Get the Rectangular Marque Tool, set Style to Fixed Size, and Width and Height both to 26 px. Make a selection as shown below. Fill the selection with 65% gray. Hit Command + D to deselect.

Hit Command + T and set the Horizontal Skew to 30 degrees. This will fit the perspective of the holes to the perspective of the plugs. Get the Polygonal Lasso Tool and make a selection, as shown in the bottom left image below. Go to Image > Adjustments > Hue/Saturation (Command + U), and set Lightness at +100% to make the selected part white.

Command-click the “Hole” layer to load the selection. Move the selection 1 px left and 1 px down. Command + Alt + Shift-click the “Hole” layer again to intersect the selection with the layer. Fill the selection with black. Also, deselect by hitting Command + D.

Step 31

Duplicate the “Hole” layer. Now we have two holes and they should be aligned properly. You can get help from the right or left edge of the plug. After aligning properly, select both hole layers and position them as shown below.

Step 32

Now get the Text Tool. I set the font as Trebuchet MS with a size of 35 pt. Make your Foreground Color #ee0055, then type your text. Hit Command + T and set the Horizontal Skew to 30 degrees and apply. Rename your text layer as “Text.” Apply a Gradient Overlay to “Text” layer using these settings: Blend Mode set to Screen, Opacity at 50%, Gradient set at Silver, with a Style of Linear, Angle set to 30 degrees, and Scale set at 75%.

We’ll also apply a Drop shadow with the following settings: Blend Mode of Multiply, Opacity set at 60%, Angle set to 90 degrees, and Distance and Size set to 2 px.

Step 33

What we have now is our USB key. What we don’t is the reflection. Our key will be floating in the air, and the bottom of it will be reflecting on the surface. And the bottom part of the key is slightly different from the top of it.

Duplicate the “Body” layer and name it “Body Bottom.” Now select the “Hole Copy,” “Hole,” “Text,” “Plug Top,” and “Body” layers, then go to Layer > Merge. Name the merged layer “USB,” and make “USB” layer invisible for now.

Step 34

We’ll get the Text Tool again, make your Foreground Color #ee0055, and type your text. Hit Command + T and scale the text to fit on the plug. Go to Edit > Transform > Flip Vertical to mirror the text. Hit Command + T and set the Horizontal Skew to 30 degrees and apply. Rename your text layer as “Text.”

Apply a Gradient Overlay to the “Text” layer using these settings: Blend Mode set to Screen, Opacity at 50%, Gradient set at Silver, with a Style of Linear, Angle set to 30 degrees ,and Scale set at 75%.

We’ll also apply a Drop shadow with the following settings: Blend Mode of Multiply, Opacity set at 60%, Angle set to 90 degrees, and Distance and Size set to 2 px.

Make sure that one of the visible layers is selected in the Layers Palette, then go to Layer > Merge Visible. Name the merged layer “Reflection.” Now you should have three layers: “Background,” “USB Final,” and “Reflection.” Now we’re almost done.

Step 35

Now make the “Plug Bottom” group visible. Open the group and delete the “White Top” layer. Go to the “White” layer and move it up, as shown below. Command-click the “Plug Hole” layer to load the selection, go to Select > Inverse. Hit Delete to Clear outside of the hole. Deselect by hitting Command + D. Go to the “Plug Hole Shadow” layer in the Layers Palette. Hit Command + T and rotate the layer 180 degrees, and make sure that it still fits in the hole.

Step 36

We’ll now place the USB sign on the plug. I drew one and you can get it here. Open the “USBsign.png” file and get the Move Tool and drag the logo into your “USB Refleciton.psd.”

Hit Command + T to enter Free Transform mode, rotate the logo -90 degrees, scale to fit on the plug, and apply. Go to Edit > Transform > Flip Vertical to mirror it. Hit Command + T again and set the Horizontal Skew to 30 degrees. Place it on the plug and set the Layer Opacity to 60%.

Step 37

Close the “Plug Bottom” group. Select the “Plug Bottom,” “Body Bottom,” and “Text” in the Layers Palette and go to Layer > Merge Layers. Name the merged layer “USB Reflection.” Make sure that “USB” layer is on the top and all the layers are visible.

Step 38

Select both “USB” and “USB Reflection” layers in the Layers Palette, hit Command + T, and Rotate -30 degrees. Grab the Move Tool, then move the “USB Reflection” layer down, as shown below. Go to Filter > Blur > Gaussian Blur and apply with a Radius of 3 px. Also, set the Layer Opacity at 20%.

Step 39

Duplicate the “USB Reflection” layer and name it “Shadow.” Hit Command + U to bring up the Hue/Saturation dialog. Set the Lightness to -100 to make the shadow black. Go to Filter > Blur > Gaussian Blur and apply with a Radius of 40 px. Set the Layer Opacity to 50% and move the “Shadow” layer up, as in the image below.