Graphic Identity Tutorials

How to Define Pattern as .PAT File in Photoshop

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Wed, 21 Dec 2011 10:14:00 +0000

Some designs are sometimes will look more stunning with the use of pattern. It is very often that you will need larger canvas to put the pattern then edit it a little for its opacity, blending mode before using it to your design.

Many digital pattern resources may only provide .PNG graphic file format for you, because of that I want to share a quick tutorial of how to define a digital graphic pattern as .PAT file in Photoshop so you can apply it in larger canvas dimension for further editing process.

Step 1 - Open the digital graphic pattern file
Any graphic digital pattern file format, such as: .GIF, .JPG or .PNG can be defined as pattern in Photoshop. To have good quality result, be sure that they are available as seamless pattern as they will be repeated in all direction later.

Step 2 - Define pattern
Once your digital graphic file is opened, go to the Photoshop main menu bar, find: Edit > Define Pattern

Another dialog box will be shown, and this time you have to name your new defined pattern then click OK when it's done.

Step 3 - Creating .PAT file for a set of patterns
Whenever you define more than one pattern, you will see all of the defined patterns in Preset Manager. Go to Edit > Preset Manager select 'Pattern' for the Preset Type option and you can see all the previous defined patterns are listed. Click the Save Set button to create the .PAT file.

You can group certain pattern type (based on the shape or design style for instance) and save them as different .PAT file. Click the Load button to add another set of .PAT file pattern in your Preset Manager.

How to fill canvas with Photoshop pattern
After you understand how to define pattern as .PAT file in Photoshop, it will be very easy for you to apply the defined pattern into any size of Photoshop canvas dimension.

First of all, create any size dimension of new blank transparent canvas file: File > New.
There are several ways to apply the pattern:

1. Use Fill tool (Shift + F5) - with this tool you can select Blending Mode type or set the Opacity of the pattern before you apply it to the canvas.

2. Use Paint Bucket tool (G) - Beside Blending Mode options and Opacity control, there are also more different options if you use Paint Bucket tool to put pattern in your blank canvas.

3. Use Shape tool (U) - The advantage of using this tool is that you can apply Pattern Overlay using Layer FX tool and scale the pattern to seamlessly appear smaller. I'm not suggesting you to scale the pattern bigger because the resolution quality will not be nice to see.

How to add color to your pattern
Basically, it is very easy to add color to your pattern by setting the opacity of the pattern layer above another layer that has solid color background. The bottom line is to make the pattern layer to look transparent with this technique.

When you fill pattern using shape tool, you can also add other effects using Layer FX tool, for instance: use Color Overlay effect, after you decrease / adjust the opacity of the Pattern Overlay effect.

I hope you will find this short tutorial useful. Use the comment form below if you have more questions and be sure to subscribe to GraphicIdentity Blog Feed because there will be another follow up tutorial related to 'pattern' soon.

Related Post:

Design Style Resources: SIMPLICITY IN WEB 2.0

noreply@blogger.com (Audee) — Sat, 29 Mar 2008 18:48:00 +0000

Here we go again, with another Design Style Resources. There should be more of these, but only pick the several best of them to give you a clue of what Web 2.0 design is.

LAYOUT DESIGN GUIDELINES

Web2.0 Design Style Guide by Web Design from Scratch

The visual design of Web 2.0 by Pixel Acres

WEB 2.0 INTERFACE TUTORIALS:

How to Create a Simple & Sleek Web 2.0 Site Footer by Daniel Lopes

Modern menu - Photoshop tutorial

Design a Web 2.0 tab with Photoshop

Vista Style Layout - Talk Mania Forum

Creating Object Reflection on a Surfaceby Graphic Identity

CSS

Rounded Corners in CSS

CSS Rounded Box Generator

Speech Bubbles

Expandable Box

GRAPHIC DESIGN APPLICATION AND TOOLS
Ultimate Web 2.0 Gradients – by Deziner Folio

Gradient Image Maker

CSS Rounded Box Generator

Stripe Generator 2.0

Stripe Designer

Web Applications for Designers

Web 2.0 Logo Creator

COLOR SCHEME

The Colors of Web 2.0 by Chris Messina

Web 2.0 Colour Palette by Stuart Brown
This is my favorite old post. Visit the website to get the hexa color codes.

FONTS AND TEXT EFFECT

Fonts

The trends in web typography by Daniel

Great Fonts for Web 2.0 by Stuart Brown
5 Free Fonts for Web 2.0 Logo

Text Effect Tutorials

Web 2.0 Text Effect by Aviva Directory
The Glossy TEXT web2.0 style by aaron

LOGOS

Is There a New Trend in Logo Design? by Toon (Guest Blog Post for Creative Curio)

How will your Favorite Logos look in Web 2.0?

A Guide to Web 2.0 Logos

How Web 2.0 Logos are Drawn by Hongkiat

20 Corporate Logos redesigned for Web 2.0 by Alex

ICONS, BADGES, and BUTTONS

Icons

Web site icons

Illustrator Vector Round Icons by ~colormist

Social networking icons

Badges

Web 2.0 Badges by ~Forzaken

Web 2.0 Badges

Buttons

Color Button 2.0 by ~IdeandoGrafica

Download Button by ~WhoIsScott

Pointy by ~adrice

Power Button in black by ~helmlein

Tutorials

Quick ways to Create Buttons using Photoshop and Illustrator by Graphic Identity

Translucent IM Style Illustrator Icon Tutorial by Spoon Graphics

Handy Web 2.0 Icons In Photoshop by Fabio

Glossy web 2.0 badge with rounded corners by Photoshop It

Web 2.0 style buttons by Iris-Design

Graphic Identity Tutorial Technorati Profile

noreply@blogger.com (Audee) — Sat, 09 Feb 2008 00:15:00 +0000

Just trying to claim this blog to Technorati using Post Claim option :)

Now Graphic Identity Tutorial is available to be fave on Technorati
Technorati Profile

Please fave it, thank you... ;)

Design Style Resources: GRUNGE URBAN ART

noreply@blogger.com (Audee) — Wed, 06 Feb 2008 14:58:00 +0000

Great listings of Grunge Urban Art design resources just to help you to figure out what they’re look like. When you use one of those resources, please credit the original designers for appreciation and read his or her design copyright before you apply them to your design.

Please tell us any broken links in this post by sending us email or comment to this post.

IMAGE EFFECT TUTORIALS:

Pop Art Inspired by Lichtenstein By Melissa Clifton

Creating grunge brushes by Veerle

How to Combine Pixel and Vector to Produce Striking Artwork by SpoonGraphics

VECTORS:

Random Free Vectors Part 11: Watercolors by Bittbox

Free Vector Resources Part 3 - Urban Collection by SpoonGraphics

Vector Resources Part 4 - Punk Collection by SpoonGraphics

106 Free Vector Shapes Pack #1 by Gabriele Magurno

Floral Grunge Vector Art by GFX Palette

PHOTOSHOP BRUSHES:

Buildings

Architectural Brush Set 1 by *ardcor

Cityscapes by ~tiffcali06

Splatters

Free Hi-Res Splatter Photoshop Brushes by Bittbox

Splatter brushes by ~C130
Available in for Photoshop 6 and above

Scratch / Noise / Cracks

Procedural Grunge Brushes by *lorddarq

Scratch Texture Brushes PS 7.0 by ~Pfefferminzchen

Bittbox 18 Hi-Res Watercolor Photoshop Brushes by Bittbox

FONTS & TEXT EFFECT:

Typewriter fonts

Colour me purple by Kimberly Geswein

3 Free Destroyed Typewriter Fonts by Graphic Identity

Grunge fonts

28 Days Later by Filmhimmel

6 Free Graffiti, Grunge, and Destroyed Fonts by Graphic Identity

Grunge Text Effect in Photoshop action

Grunge Text Effect in Photoshop Action – Part 1

Grunge Text Effect in Photoshop Action – Part 2

Grunge Text Effect in Photoshop Action – Part 3

Text Effect Photoshop tutorials

Worn Rubber Stamp Text by Design This

Graffiti Text With Photoshop by Dreamdealer

Worn and Torn Text Effect by Photoshop Essentials

TEXTURES:

Textures 52 by ~bombay101

Grungy paper texture v.8 by =bashcorpo

Texture set 04 by ~pildas

COLOR SCHEME:

We are also preparing to post series of design styles as follows, they could be: Techno, Corporate, Web 2.0 theme and many more. Graphic Identity team now plans to publish PDF file format that contain a compilation of these design series, a free E-book to download.

If you are a graphic designer who is also interested to contribute your FREE supporting resources to create such design, please feel free to contact us via email graphicidentity.blog@gmail.com. You would have the chance to promote your blog compiled with other designers in E-book publication. You can submit: graphic design tutorials, photoshop brushes, vectors, fonts or anything classified as free supporting resources to create specific design style.

Be sure that you don’t missed the blog updates by subscribing to Graphic Identity RSS feed or subscribe by Email.

Design Style Tutorial: GRUNGE URBAN ART

noreply@blogger.com (Audee) — Wed, 06 Feb 2008 14:30:00 +0000

Being around with several simple tutorials about typography and general design using Photoshop, we will now move to specific design styles in a series that will continue for some time now, to start with Grunge Urban Art Style.

Before we step further, you will need sorts of design elements to create such design style. You don't have to worry, because all those design elements are actually available for free on the internet. I have great listings of Grunge Urban Art design resources just to help you to figure out what they're look like. When you use one of those resources, please credit the original designers for appreciation and read his or her design copyright before you apply them to your design.

There are certain design elements which are essential to establish a grungy vibes to your design. However, you don't need to use them all together at once, because these are just sorts of technique hints. They are:

1. Fonts and typography.
The best font type I suggest would be typewriter fonts or grunge fonts that have heavily texturized effect. Every kind of graffiti typography and industrial print alike are perfect example font styles.

2. Building or architectural background
Grunge style frequently related to urban style in particular. Urban life in the crowded city, with graffiti walls around. High rise building a photograph or the cityscape around your neighborhood will do for this purpose. Hence, you can pick: electricity towers, building construction works, or even a factory building as background or silhouette to your grunge design.

3. Color schemes
Mood in a grunge design often associated with black color. Black is a hint of power and superiority of a metropolitan society. Another dominant color that plays the role is dark grey, which is a sophisticated connotation of stone and concrete. You can find the complete color schemes suggestion in the resources lists.

4. Dirt noise textures
Creating grunge design is always been fun, because it's always associates with irregularity and erratic method. The best textures to use are splatters, blood, water colors, noise and scratch. You can apply these textures using Photoshop brush tool, or Photoshop pattern.

5. Miscellaneous vectors shape and image style
I've seen some grunge design styles that are also quite psychedelic. The common trends could have been light beams background shapes. A grunge floral vector that has erratic texture will work as well. If you need a photo or model to display, I recommend you to use pop art or line art Photoshop retouch effect.

This tutorial is just another way to create "grunge urban" design. You can find other similar Photoshop tutorials, photoshop goodies (brushes, patterns, and shapes), fonts, and vectors from other sites. If I missed something, you can just comment or even show me your own design to improve it :).

I will show you how to create grungy wallpaper. A good friend of mine, Abhinav Sood was so generous to let his photo being edited for this tutorial ;p. Thank you Abhi!

OK, Lets begin with the tutorial:

Step 1 - Choosing colors
Depends on what kind of design that you want to create, it is very crucial for you to pick several colors (4-6 hues in a colors scheme) before you add another elements. Too much variation of colors will diffuse the design emphasis. You can take a look of the color scheme option in the resources list and pick 6 maximum of them that you think would be the best color combination.

Step 2 - Adding background elements
Background elements can be in the form of vector shape, photoshop brushes, or textures.
Bear in mind to always create a new layer for every object background element. The purpose of this step is nothing but to have easy customization to move, flip or rotate if you need to do it later on.

Set the different color contrast between the main object and background elements layer, as you may need to keep the visibility of main object in layers order.

Some design, would need extensive grunge background effect on a whole design workspace. There are many tutorials to create in quick way and you can also use ready made textures background such as grunge paper or hi-res vector background splatters.
But if you want to create that effect that is limited to the border or corner part of your design workspace, you can always use photoshop brushes or vectors shape.

Set a new file as a primary workspace (initial workspace), and start to fill it with background elements as you wish.

Design resource overview:
Magurno's vector shapes
are just marvelous, I have no reason to not to use the ready made splatters vectors which are available in photoshop vector shape and EPS format.
I also choose a superb architectural brush set of a deviant artist, *ardcor. I pick one of the available building brushes that have worm eye view perspective. My favorite!

Step 3 - Applying Special Effect
You can set any object as a main outline. Open a new file to edit it. Remove the unnecessary background then put on some special effect to the object.
Drag the finished image layer to your initial workspace. Or you can manually do the copy and paste object to duplicate that layer to the initial workspace.

Design resource overview:
I use pop art style to Abhinav photo. You can read how to create pop art effect tutorial in detailed version, written by Melissa Clifton.

Step 4 - Working with Fonts
Add some design styles, but be sure to avoid reflecting effect, uniformly beveled text and smoothing text edges.
Grunge or typewriter fonts tend to have rough surface, erratic, and crisp edge. In this tutorial example, I only add gradient overlay effect to stylize it a bit.

Design resource overview:
The featured font in this tutorial is another favorite of mine; called Uncle's Typewriter fonts By: Typo 5. Quite eroded! ;)

Just to let you know, that I will start to publish series of design styles as follows, which are: Techno, Corporate, Web 2.0 styles and many more. Graphic Identity team will plan to publish PDF file format that contain a compilation of these design series, a free E-book to download. Make sure that you don't missed the blog updates by subscribing to Graphic Identity RSS feed or subscribe by Email.

GRUNGE WEB DESIGN ON INTERNET:

Baranda Tequila

Demonstrasi Senam Reformasi (header design project)

Maria Liaxo

Miles Johnson

10 Enhancement Ideas to Optimize your Design Blog Topic

noreply@blogger.com (Audee) — Fri, 11 Jan 2008 12:59:00 +0000

We often read SEO tips for general blogs. I was so curious how to implement those tips and tricks to my design blog topic. Because a design blog niche (like any other niches) always has uniqueness in context, and therefore I always experiment and doing trial and error to improve my blog.
I've seen tons of design blog topics, but not all of them can win the viewer's attention. Creativity in optimization plays important role. My blog is so young and still in the learning process of optimization. However in the middle of that never lasting process, the challenge would always be how to enhance your blog performance. Here are 10 enhancement ideas to optimize your Design Blog Topic:

1. Brings an identity to the blog look
Your logo represents your blog identity. It doesn't have to be a marvelous illustration in style, because a great logo is actually meant deeper than that. Abhinav Sood of InspiritBlog says that

"Logo speaks before words do...And speaks more than words do"

2. Choose design niche content and topic that attract you most and suit your goal:
If you are a design admirer, and love to review sorts of designs, you can post article about:

Design review is an introduction to certain design style. Comprehensive review would be better done by profesional designers or doing an interview with the creator. A good example would be: Type for You, that published an article based on the interview with Ricardo Santos.

Design Showcase by random favorite, based on poll or survey, etc. Blastyle has been publishing simple design showcase from great graphic designers and it is a great example of a blog design topic. You can also capture a pool result and write a review about it as follows. Learn how LogoBlog Poll, grants an appreciation of Superhero Logos after conducting a survey.

Top 5 or Top 50 sorts of design review.
This kind of writing style is a great way to create intriguing headlines title. Smashing Magazine receives tons of readers and comments using this kind of writing style.

As a designer, you can share your expertise to help another designer with new tips hence you can write:
- Tutorials about design or how to articles. Blog example: Lawny Designz
- Design software review or write a post about web tool service related to design.
- Create profesional discussion, or dialogue with the viewers. Blog example: Graphic Design Blog

Sometimes blogging is a very good tool to improve a website, because you can also offer commercial services to the visitors, such as:
- Design services or products. Dennis Plucinik, puts a vertical banner at his sidebar blog, which is a very effective approach to promote design services he's been working on by profession.
- Profesional design consultation
- Freelance job listings
- Design portfolio inclusion. Blog examples: Randay Clay's portfolio and Firewalker

3. Share freebies

Designers sometimes need quick design element when dealing with deadline, sharing freebies would help them a lot. Create and share many kinds of freebies like: icons, vectors, buttons, Adobe Photoshop goodies, CSS script, fonts, favicon, skins, web or blog templates, web headers, etc. Blog example: JLW Design. However, freebies are not always in the form of design elements. You can also share other useful resources in the form of E-book and links. Blog example: Veerle's links collection.

I thought being different is essential, so I call my freebies as "Free Design Box". I create a button to access my freebies collection and place it at the top (below my headers) hence the viewers find it easily.

Interact with your readers for feedback. Broken download links; file size is too big to download; limited download bandwidth and unsupported file format sometimes appear as problems. Prevention step is the best deal. Double check before you launch freebies set.

Provide file property data, like: file format, file size in bytes, file compatibility for certain application and version. Bittbox is the perfect example.

4. Visual Dialogues matters

Design blog topic, must be able to communicate visually with the viewers. Support the explanation as words and images that collaborate side by side.

When you write tutorial and you need to show flat color image thumbnail for it, and GIF is the best choice of web image format. Consider smaller file but persist the quality of the image. If it was photographic, use a JPEG format.

If you decide to use free service photo or image hosting, choose the best one that provide various features. There are lots of photo hosting services such as: Photobucket, or Flixya. The good news is, this service can apply tag or label your photos and image, share easily between members and by email if you customize them as public view, and the code script are also available for different purposes. Some services can crop or resize your photo and image instantly. I like this service because, it is free and you don't have to do the re-upload when you need the same image for another post.

Create group or forums to discuss and critique each other's design with Flickr. Bittbox User Showcase is an amazing example of a design discussion.

5. Build a small community

List the communities that you've joined already, so everyone can easily add you as their friends or invite you to their community

Start a group writing project, blog meme or blog carnival to enhance reader's involvement

Install a widget from blog forum which provide fresh update for design buzz topic, latest design submission or latest discussion topic related to design (e.g. Digg, BlogCatalog, and Deviant Art).This will encourage your reader to find something different from your blog and show that your blog is always following the news for content.

Exchange everything that's useful to your readers (guest posting, comment, useful links, and feed subscription)

Give a sincere appreciation and rewards for your visitors and commenters (recent comment widget, link love plug-in, recent visitors widget from your blog forums, top commenters count widget, friend list) so it will increase their blog authority as well as yours. But the important thing is to give them a nice response and thanking for their feedback :)

Open a discussion about design related. If you wonder what kind of topic that most talk about among designers, you can try one of these topics:
1. Share what you've experienced as a profesional designer, such as: dealing with client, searching new ideas, working with partners, freelancers activities, design process troubleshooting, etc.
2. Post an article about interesting design forums and discuss their advantage features
3. Complete review about new design gadget or software.
4. Design Critique
5. Other unique ideas???? There is nothing better than reading Inspiration Bits that come from another blogger. :)

6. Easy to navigate:
Design Blog niche, is always dealing with many terms about design. Of course you don't want your readers to get lost when browsing your blog do you? There are several ways to create simple navigation system:

By default, Wordpress user has the advantage to show label category with the number of post as well as New Blogger Blogspot. Visitors can easily select certain label category to find specific related articles.

Using Technorati label, Delicious widgets or Swicky is is just examples of tool that help you to create simple navigation system. I prefer Delicious, since the visitors will have the chance to bookmark my post and add my blog to their network. Technorati labels work almost the same as Delicious, unless it receives your article updates from the automatic pings. However with Delicious, you must do it manually.

Design blog topic would generate several different tags or labels for each article. Be sure that this labeling system would help the readers to navigate the whole blog articles. A long trail of tags is not a good idea if you have space limitation in your blog. They would look cluttered and slowing down the readers to find the right tag or label. Avoid labeling article that merely based neither on the title nor to way too specific.

Try to include these navigation system elements:
1. Archive by month; if your blog has been updated since years back, use pull down menu to extract the long link list trails.
2. Latest post, you can show 5 or 10 recent articles just incase your reader need to access the previous part.
3. Search box, provide search tool where the user will find it easily.
4. Menu tab, some bloggers love simple link with different css style headings. But if you want to look different, try to use CSS Tab Menu software, where you can create profesional tab menu. If you decide to use horizontal tab menu, be sure that it won't surpassed your main content width. The result will be awfully cluttered. Instead of that, try to use the vertical sidebar tab menu when you have several web pages to be featured.
5. Sitemap - it is a hierarchy system where you can guide your visitors to browse your blog.

7. Reciprocal Links

Featured article links would be good to arrange as listings of the most favorite articles. N Design, is a good example of a design blog that features its previous article with thumbnail pictures. While Graphic Illustration blog uses different heading styles and color to feature article links.

Provide related post or related links from other resources in every article. Related post is a way to invite the viewers to visit another article post, because new updates will slowly bury your previous articles.

8. Protect your blog content

Declare the legal usage for everything that belongs to your creativity rights.

Preserve your design image or photos using watermark label.

9. Promote your blog
A blog with good content but without maximum attempt of promotion will slowly lost its potential readers. There are easy ways to promote your design blog topic, such as:

Provide access to socio bookmark your article that is easy to reach. Placing the widget at the post footer is the most common thing to do. Readers would probably bookmark after finding a good article and share it to their contacts or keep it into their email inbox. So don't loose the chance to promote with a socio bookmarking system

Optimize your article feed with Feed Flares if you use FeedBurner to handle feed subscriptions. A must to know about RSS is useful skill to help promote your blog.

You can include your blog URL signature at your email footer, and whenever you enter blog forum to comment on a discussion or articles.

Online business card exchange is a new web tool to spread your blog identity to another blog using widget. Blast and Entrecard are just examples of the service.

Link Submission. Submit your blog to:
1. Blog Directories: Blog Fusion, My Blog Directory, etc.
2. Design feed aggregators submission,
3. Blog forums, there are two type of blog forum. The first one is meant for specific design niche such as Pixel Digest, Graphic Design & Illustration Forum. The second one is general forum with art or design category in it (e.g. DotDashCreate)

10. Provide the right standard web tool

Usability:
1. Search box tool
2. Slideshow galery
3. Quick commenting system widget
4. RSS feed subscription
5. Email contact
6. Main menu tabs
7. About me page
8. Registration (members, payment)
9. Socio bookmarking widget
10. Permanent link

Accessibility:
1. Color contrast for blind color
2. Programming Script and plugin that works for all different kind of user's platform and tool.
3. Cross browser CSS links
4. Alternative tools for the disable, and unsupported browser.

Readability:
1. Set fonts using ems, since pixels have one primary disadvantage: they can't be resized in Internet Explorer. Read I love Typography's post about excellent examples of web typography.
2. Anticipate layout width for mobile users or viewers with smaller screen resolution.
3. Be sure that all your images use the alt and title tags so that screen readers for the visually impaired can correctly parse your page:
< img src="logo.gif" alt="logo" title="logo/" />

Do you have a design blog topic? Is there any other enhancement idea that I missed to mention?

If you like this article, you can subscribe in RSS feed reader or subscribe to Graphic Identity by email

How to Create Water Droplets in Photoshop

noreply@blogger.com (Audee) — Sat, 22 Dec 2007 12:43:00 +0000

It’s been quite a while since my last Photoshop Tutorial guys :), anyway I spent my long holiday to write another tutorial, which is how to create water droplets in Photoshop.

I also included the photoshop action to create this water droplets effect, and there are two kinds of action for creating: bigger water droplets and the smaller one.

This tutorial is very easy for photoshop beginners, but actually there are also another ways of technique to create water droplets using Photoshop. The problem is sometime the water droplets won’t appear to be natural or realistic on the first attempt of applying some filter effect. Filter effects are would likely produce uniform artificially look of water droplets on an object surface. Therefore, as usual...you need to do the retouch to finish this effect. Lets begin now!

Step 1 – Working with a New File

Open a new file of image that has any object, it could be leaf, flower, glass of water or any interesting objects to practice this file.

Add new layer and place it above your image object layer. Activate this layer (work on this layer) from now on.

Press “D” key to set the color palette into black and white or find the color palette on the Tool Box to set it

And fill the new layer with the foreground color which is black.

Step 2 – Working with Filters Effect

Go to the menu Filter > Render > Fibers and set the value in the dialogue box (Variance: 16.0 ; Strength: 4.0) just like being shown here:

Then look again to menu Filter > Texture > Stained Glass, set the value in the option box: Cell Size: 6 ; Border Thickness: 10 ; Light Intensity: 1:

Find menu Filter > Sketch > Plaster and set the value in the dialogue box: Image Balance: 20 ; Smothness: 8 ; Light Direction: bottom:

Step 3 – Using Magic Wand Tool to Clear the Black Background

On the ToolBox, click on magic wand tool and set its Tolerance value: 32.

Back to your workspace, working still in new layer that now almost show water droplets; click the black background of your water droplets layer.

Press Delete and to remove the selection, just go to menu Select > Deselect or “Ctrl + D”.

Step 4 – Finishing Retouch

Go to the Layers Panel and set the Blending Mode from Normal to Overlay and set the Opacity to 73%.

As I told you in the beginning, to create almost realistic water droplets effect on a surface, you need to do the finishing retouch. You can chose to use layer masking technique or simply erasing the unwanted spot water droplets to do it. Somehow using both of those techniques together would also help ;)

Layer Masking Technique

On the layer panel, you can find Layer Mask icon and click it to add layer mask. Click the layer mask which created right next to your water droplets.

Find the Brush Tool on the Tool Box, set the opacity somewhere between 35% – 55% and wipe the brush on your workspace, pick some random spot so your water droplets won’t look uniform in shapes again.

If you want to make them look almost disappear, especially outside of your object surface, set the opacity of your brush to 100%.

Layer masking gives you easy way blend the water droplets to the object surface without really making them disappear.

Eraser Tool

If you wish to use eraser tool, inactivate the layer mask by clicking on the original water droplets layer which is placed on the left side of the layer mask.

Set the opacity and brush tip as you want, the more it gets close to 100% value, then your eraser tool can absolutely erase the water droplets without a trace.

Water Droplets Effect in Photoshop Action

Want to do it quick ;), download this water droplets effect photoshop action to apply on an object surface. There are actually two actions in single file, one is to create bigger water droplets, and the other one is to create the smaller one.

All you need is an image file on a new layer, install the photoshop action and play it. Wait in about 50 secs, and you’ll get these droplets instantly.

Do the Finishing Retouch in Step 4 above to create nice and realistic water droplets effect, and you’re done :)

If you don’t know what Photoshop Action is and how to install it, you can go to my previous tutorial post about Photoshop Action.

Graphic Identity - water droplets.atn (3 KB)

Graphic Identity - water droplets.rar (798 B)

Don’t miss out to download my next photoshop action series by subscribing to my feed!

Related Tutorial Links:

Quick ways to Create Buttons using Photoshop and Illustrator

noreply@blogger.com (Audee) — Sat, 10 Nov 2007 00:45:00 +0000

These are lists of my old favorite tutorials to create button in quick steps. You can learn both in Photoshop or Illustrator ;)

I’m curious finding quick techniques to create buttons. You can find wide range of button type tutorial such as, rounded corner to glossy button, iconic to nice aqua button and many more. If I find something interesting, I will update this post for sure…

Stay tune and Enjoy !!!

~ Graphic Identity

PHOTOSHOP

Another Tutorial Site - Cool Shiny Green Button

PinkZAP - RSS Button Variations

LawnyDesignz - Create a nice feed icon in Photoshop

Verlee’s Blog - Creating flexible buttons using Photoshop shapes and styles

ILLUSTRATOR

Graphic Illustration - How to Make Shiny Web 2.0 Button

N Design Studio - Glassy Button

Verlee’s Blog - 5 Steps to achieve nice aqua effect

Bittbox - How to make a Vector Glass Button

IT Enquirer - Creating a button with a Mesh Gradient

How to Install Photoshop Brush Set

noreply@blogger.com (Audee) — Sat, 20 Oct 2007 12:57:00 +0000

Photoshop Brushes usually available in huge size files. This is because some designer made high resolution brushes to get high quality for Printing Standard. The size of each brush can be range between 1500px – 2500px. You can imagine if a series of certain theme brush being compiled together in one file. I’m not talking about hundreds of kilobytes, be patient to download more than 10 megabytes .ABR file in archive folder.

Photoshop Brushes by default, saved in a specific file known as: .ABR file format.

Here is how to install Photoshop Brush:

Download the Photoshop Brush set that you find from my Blog or another site, and extract the Winrar file into ABR file. Save it into your computer hardisk.

Open your Adobe Photoshop and find the Brush Tool

Below the menu bar, you can find Brush Tool menu option and click on tiny arrow that I’ve marked with circle.

You will soon find another Brush Tool submenu option and again, click on tiny arrow that I’ve marked with circle.

A Brush Tool tray options will shown, and choose Load Brushes.

A new set of brushes will be appearing after the previous default brushes.
If you want to have sort of new set brushes only, then you can choose Replace Brushes

That’s it, you can start to use the brushes now!

I will write a post about my photoshop brush in few days ahead. You can download 7 brushes set in an archive file for free. So don't missed out for my next post by subscribing to my feed!

If you like my tutorial series, please drop a comment and subscribe to my feed!

How to create Swirly Curls in Illustrator

noreply@blogger.com (Audee) — Mon, 15 Oct 2007 12:46:00 +0000

It’s been more than a week since my last tutorial article. Hope you would love this one ;)
Today’s tutorial is different than before. I want to share you an easy tutorial of how to create Swirls in Illustrator.

Decorative swirls are loved nowadays; people always use this style along with natural element into their design. I know that there are lots of tutorials which are sound similar with mine. Well the idea is to create swirly curls, but my technique would probably different than any others. The twirl effect result is having some hazy kind of curls, so I guess it would be interesting.

Step One – Draw a Rectangle

Create a new file and find the Rectangle Tool (press key M) in the Tool Box, then draw a rectangle in any size as you wish.

Search a Scallop Tool and double click on it to go to Scallop Tool Option.

Set the value that shown below:

Back to your rectangle drawing image, and with the Scallop Tool click at one of its corner.

You can click any corner, and here is the result:

The corner that you have clicked would have 90 degree corner angle, while the other corners deform into scallop effect.

Step two – Creating Swirly Curls

Find the Twirl Tool and double click on it to go to Twirl Tool Option

Set the value that shown below:

Click at any corner and hold it in few seconds until you see the twirl effect that you want.

You should know that in order to get nice effect, this one is little bit tricky. I suggest you to use this twirl tool at any corner point but avoid clicking on the part of deformed rectangle that has 90 degree corner angle. The possibilities of results are countless. It would depend on how long you hold the mouse click. The longer you hold it, and then you will have lots of twirl spirals. Otherwise, simple shape twirl will be created. Spend some times to experiment using different shape to twirl is also useful to try.

If you want to change the twirl shape, you can use Warp Tool (Shift + R), by dragging the end point of your swirly curl.

The finished swirly curls:

As you see, the swirly curl is created in a single path. You can join them into a group of paths along with other curls and swooshes. Learn how to do it in detail by reading Bittbox’s tutorial “How to make custom swooshes swirls and curls”.

Bittbox also provides series of Illustrator Brushes (free to download) to create swirls and curls using Spiral Tool.

I got another resource that came from Verlee’s Blog, where she uses different techniques to create swirly curls but also worth to visit.

If you like my tutorial series, please drop a comment and subscribe to my feed!

Grunge Text Effect in Photoshop Action – Part 3

noreply@blogger.com (Audee) — Sun, 07 Oct 2007 23:54:00 +0000

Another grunge text effect photoshop action to download today ;). You should try this tutorial because this kind of text effect is neater than the Part 1 and Part 2. Still result in destroyed fonts but I exclude random rustic details at the text background which belong in previous version.

Download the Graphic Identity - text grunge 03.ATN (2Kb) inside a WinRAR archive file.

Graphic Identity - text grunge 03.rar (1.2 KB)

If you don’t know what Photoshop Action is and how to install it, you can go to my previous tutorial post about Photoshop Action.

Don’t miss out to download my next photoshop action series by subscribing to my feed!

Step One – Create a text layer

Create a new file and make a text layer. You can add background if you like, just to make it easy, when you want to see a clear grunge effect.

I choose dark background behind orange text.

The interesting part about my grunge photoshop action, is that you can blend two colors (better be in contrast) combination. I suggest you to do some small experiment using different color combination to see how they will look for your design.

Step two – Working with photoshop action

Install the grunge photoshop action, and play selection. Wait in a minute to see the result.

Get the finished Grunge text effect:

Don’t miss out to download my next photoshop action series by subscribing to my feed!

Grunge Text Effect in Photoshop Action – Part 2

noreply@blogger.com (Audee) — Sun, 30 Sep 2007 08:32:00 +0000

As I promised you, I will share another grunge text effect photoshop action today. You will find more destroyed fonts in result with the same kind of random rustic details at the text background which I could not control the size to display. For a better text effect, I think you would still need to do the retouch manually and I will show you how.

Download the Graphic Identity - text grunge 02.ATN (2Kb) inside a WinRAR archive file.

Graphic Identity - text grunge 02.rar (1.12 KB)

If you don’t know what Photoshop Action is and how to install it, you can go to my previous tutorial post about Photoshop Action.

Don’t miss out to download my next photoshop action series by subscribing to my feed!

Step One – Create a text layer

Create a new file and make a text layer. You can add background if you like, just to make it easy, when you want to see a clear grunge effect.

I choose dark background behind orange text.

The interesting part about my grunge photoshop action, is that you can blend two colors (better be in contrast) combination. I suggest you to do some small experiment using different color combination to see how they will look for your design.

Step two – Working with photoshop action

Install the grunge photoshop action, and play selection. Wait in a minute to see the result.

If you follow the steps correctly, then you will see this effect:

There is kind of eroded background, which perhaps you need to adjust a little more.

Go to the layer panel, and your default text layer has been rasterized and being duplicated in two times. Be sure to work in grunge copy 2 layer, because that is where the eroded background set.

Search for eraser tool in tool box, then set its opacity as you like and start to erase unwanted background spot with this tool.

You can also adjust the layer opacity as you wish to have better background look.

Get the finished Grunge text effect:

Don’t miss out to download my next photoshop action series by subscribing to my feed!

Grunge Text Effect in Photoshop Action – Part 1

noreply@blogger.com (Audee) — Tue, 25 Sep 2007 03:03:00 +0000

This was my weekend experiment, trying to capture best photoshop action series of grunge text effects. As an experimental work, in the finished text effect there are random rustic details at the text background which I could not control the size to display. You would still need to do the retouch manually and I will show you how.

Download the Graphic Identity - text grunge 01.ATN (2Kb) inside a WinRAR archive file.

Graphic Identity - text grunge 01.rar (1.12 KB)

If you don’t know what Photoshop Action is and how to install it, you can go to my previous tutorial post about Photoshop Action.

Don’t miss out to download my next photoshop action series by subscribing to my feed!

Step One – Create a text layer

Create a new file and make a text layer. You can add background if you like, just to make it easy, when you want to see a clear grunge effect.

I choose dark background behind orange text.

The interesting part about my grunge photoshop action, is that you can blend two colors (better be in contrast) combination. I suggest you to do some small experiment using different color combination to see how they will look for your design.

Step two – Working with photoshop action

Install the grunge photoshop action, and play selection. Wait in a minute to see the result.

If you follow the steps correctly, then you will see this effect:

There is kind of eroded background, which perhaps you need to adjust a little more.

Go to the layer panel, and your default text layer has been rasterized and being duplicated in two times. Be sure to work in grunge copy 2 layer, because that is where the eroded background set.

Search for eraser tool in tool box, then set its opacity as you like and start to erase unwanted background spot with this tool.

You can also adjust the layer opacity as you wish to have better background look.

Get the finished Grunge text effect:

Don’t miss out to download my next photoshop action series by subscribing to my feed!

Snow Text Effect in Photoshop Action

noreply@blogger.com (Audee) — Mon, 03 Sep 2007 01:15:00 +0000

I already wrote a tutorial about how to create Snow Text Effect using Photoshop
back then, and today I want to share the Snow Text Effect in Photoshop Action with you.

Download the Snow Text Effect.ATN (9Kb) inside a WinRAR archive file.

Snow Text Effect.RAR (1.57Kb)

If you don’t know what Photoshop Action is and how to install it, you can go to my previous tutorial post about Photoshop Action.

All you need to do is to dark background color (black, dark blue, etc.) and some text to edit on your new canvas.

Just remember to put them in separate layer, which are background layer and text layer.
Activate the text layer, and you may need to know that a new text layer by default will be labeled in the first word or character that you type inside the canvas area. In this example I type “ice” and the layer shows ice label after you click on it.

The next step is to rename that text layer with “snow” and rasterize type (right click on the layer text then click rasterize type).

Go to the action panel and play action selection after you load (install) the Snow Text Effect photoshop action in your hardisk.

Wait in few seconds until the process of editing is finished, and you will get this kind of result:
It is rather rough effect, isn’t it? You can just edit it a little bit.

Go to the Tool Box and find Eraser Tool. Erase unwanted snows that melt down from the top to the bottom of the text as you wish.

The finished look would be like this:

Glowing in the Dark Text Effect

noreply@blogger.com (Audee) — Mon, 27 Aug 2007 12:29:00 +0000

Today’s tutorial is easy but it’s different than before, because I included the Photoshop Action (.ATN) also. Glowing in the Dark is somehow a beginner can do in 3 minutes (less or more), but Photoshop Action will do this effect less than 1 minute ;)

Download, extract the file and load it to your Photoshop Action Panel.

If you don’t know what Photoshop Action is and how to install it, you can go to my previous tutorial post about Photoshop Action.

Glowing Text Effect.rar (486 B)

This is a quick one, all you need to prepare is dark background color (black, dark blue, etc.) and of course some text to edit on your new canvas. Just remember to put them in separate layer, which are background layer and text layer.

Font: Rough Draft by Harold Lohner

Activate the text layer, and add layer style. This first step is also needed to execute the Glowing in the Dark Text Effect Photoshop Action.

After you click the add layer style, you can see a tray menu show up and choose Outer Glow. Set these values at once.

You can pick any color of Outer Glow Structure. I use the default set, which is pale yellow.

Customize the spread and size and any technique of glows in Outer Glow Elements.

Outer Glow Quality provides you a tool to set the Contour, Range and Jitter and chek Anti-aliased option if you want smooth result.

Click OK button and all done.

Spinning Wind Effect in Photoshop Action

noreply@blogger.com (Audee) — Mon, 27 Aug 2007 11:55:00 +0000

Spinning Wind effect is my second Photoshop Action that I will share with you for free.
Download, extract the file and load it to your Photoshop Action Panel.

If you don’t know what Photoshop Action is and how to install it, you can go to my previous tutorial post about Photoshop Action.

Spinning Winds.rar (545 B)

Getting start is easy. Go to the toolbox and find switch color palette for background and foreground. Set the background color in black, and you can choose whatever color as foreground.

Create a new canvas work in any size and fill the canvas in black, when you set with your Photoshop Action to make this effect, just click play selection button below the panel.

Here is the result:

Photoshop Actions

noreply@blogger.com (Audee) — Wed, 01 Aug 2007 09:03:00 +0000

What is Photoshop Actions?

Did you know that Photoshop Action is a special feature of Adobe Photoshop that can record series of executed command you have made to your design work? This feature can easily create your design within a click in a minutes or less after you customize it. You can have several of Photoshop Actions saved in your computer hardisk. Photoshop Actions is a very handy tool for digital lab, photographer, advertising or publishing agency to create the same special effect style over and over, and of course, this feature is designed to maintain your effective work schedule.

Photoshop Action droplets file can be saved in .atn format after you made series of commands recorded. It would remain there, in actions and history panel and stop to work after you save your work design.

What is the difference between Photoshop Actions and History?

We know that we can undo some commands that are made in limited number in history panel. The number series of commands depend to the scratch disk customization. Photoshop can only record 20 commands in default. This history feature would consume big memory space in your computer’s hardisk, not to mention if we work in multiple work files. But when we save them, the history will begin to count commands from start again.

Photoshop action can do better since we can save every of command series for certain effect style, given each of them specific name to easily recognize for future needs. We can use it over and over so we don’t have to remember each command we put to our design work file to create certain effect style ;D Cool isn’t it?

How to begin Photoshop Action

Go to the Window > Actions to display action panel or press Alt+F9
for shortcut.

On the top right of action panel, find a tiny arrow and click to find out each menu which is correspond to actions customization.

Have a new file set, and go to action panel submenu (click the tiny arrow at the top of action panel) to begin recording your commands by clicking new set, and give any label to fit your design style. I want to create bevel text so there I typed “bevel text” and click OK button.

Then back to action panel submenu and choose new actions. Give any action label which placed inside your set. You can have more than one action in a single set. This is good if you need to do step by step playback.

You can also set certain function key for shortcut command action and choose color which helps you a lot when you want to display your action panel in Button Mode.

Click Record to start recording.

To stop recording click the stop button and you can start a new action series needed for your own design which I have explained previously. Then you just need to continue this step using any tools.

How to Save and Load .ATN File

When you finish your entire design, go to the action panel submenu and choose save action. You can save it anywhere in your computer hardisk. Photoshop will save it in
.ATN format by default and you can load action anytime you’ll need it from action panel submenu option.

To execute these sorts of actions, simply click one of them and play action.

There are other options which are toogle dialogue on/off and toogle item on/off. Toogle dialogue on/off functions is to give option to modify each action in step by step commands if it is on. It works automatically in one click (without any modifying prompt options) when it is off.
Toogle item on/off function is to lock or hide the certain action.

IMPORTANT TIPS :

Not all tools feature and image retouching process can be recorded; there are some limitations when your design workspace needs direct handling such as brush tools, or clone stamp on certain spot.
You must know where your action begins. For example: you can not make an action commands series to draw a new canvas work file since you didn’t set it initially in your action. There will be a box warning option shown if you continue to execute the action. Make a new file will solve this problem. Otherwise if you have set it initially, your workspace canvas size and all things correspond into it, can not be changed or being fixed out.

Creating Object Reflection on a Surface

noreply@blogger.com (Audee) — Sun, 08 Jul 2007 03:30:00 +0000

"Techie", clean and futuristic looks, can be accomplished using reflection effect. Today I will show you how to create object reflection on a surface in easy steps.

Step 1 - Manage the object

Pick any object in your desire, it can be fonts or image. I use font in this tutorial which you know as Graphic Identity logo. There is important thing that you need to know when you use font as an object editing, and it is quite different if you use image. Font Layer need to be rasterized before you can modify it in further way. To rasterize the font layer you can simply click on the Font Layer and choose Rasterize Type.

Remove the background object, and copy to a new layer with a bigger size area. If you don't know how to delete an object from its background you can read my previous tutorial about Creating a Perfect Selection in Photoshop.

Duplicate the object layer and put "reflection" label so you can easily recognize it. Put the reflection layer right below the initial layer object.

Make a new layer and fill with white background.

Step 2 - Creating Reflection

Work on reflection layer and go to menu Edit > Transform > Flip Vertical.
Show guides by choosing menu View > Show > Guides. Drag a guide line from the ruler tool down to bottom of your object. Make it as precise as possible symmetrically, and then move the reflection layer just like the reference picture.

Work still on the reflection layer and go to the menu Filter > Blur > Motion Blur and put the value which showed in the picture.

Click at the Toolbox on Edit in Quick Mask Mode tool.

While you are in Quick Mask Mode, select the Gradient Tool.

Drag a rectangle around the reflection layer object. Make sure that the selected area doesn't overlay the area of the initial object layer. It can be a lot easier if you put another guides at the left, right and bellow the reflection layer object.

Click from the top of selected area, and drag about half way down before you release the mouse-cursor. If you follow this tutorial in a right way, you should have something in your work space which looks like this.

Back to the Standard Mode which you can find in the Tool Box. After that press Delete button on the keyboard.

Step 3 - Optimizing Reflection

Your creation is almost done, but you must optimize the reflection layer in just few steps away. Go to the menu Filter > Blur > Gaussian Blur and enter the value which showed in the picture below:

Adjust the opacity of reflection layer, as you see here I reduced 70% of the opacity so the layer transparency will show deep smooth effect as reflection on a surface.

Clear the guide and well done!!

IMPORTANT TIPS:

This tutorial only shows how to make reflection of an object which is absolutely in straight front elevation. For an object in perspective stand, you will need to transform the reflection layer object after you flip it vertically. It should be rotated and even distorted to get good perspective reflection effect.
Some object that has dark heavy color such as black, deep blue, etc, will look much better if we pick a contrast color as its background (white, light grey). It would works otherwise for object with lighter color. So you'd better doing some experiments when choosing colors for background.

Snow Text Effect

noreply@blogger.com (Audee) — Sun, 08 Jul 2007 02:08:00 +0000

Step 1 - Rasterize Type

Fill a new layer as a background with black color, and make another new layer.
Work on this new layer and use Type Tool at the Toolbox to type "SNOW" . Don't forget to set the font in white color.

Go to the layer panel and then working still on your Type Layer then right click on that layer and choose Rasterize Type.

Step 2 - Duplicate Layer

Add style on the type layer by clicking Add a Layer Style icon at the bottom of layer panel. Choose Bevel and Emboss at the Add Layer Style tool menu tray list.

Set the value that shown in the image below:

Work still on the type layer, and right click to choose duplicate layer. Repeat this step again one time.

You got three typical layers now. Add label on each layer differently and put them in the right order just like showed in the illustration. You can do it by double clicking each layer till you see a space to write a text show up.

Work on "Snow Center" layer now and turn off other snow layers visibility by clicking their 'eyes' icon at the left side of layer panel.

Step 3 - Creating Snow Effect at the Center of the Text

Go to the Filter > Distort > Ripple, and put the value showed below:

You would see the result like this:

Click at Toolbox for Edit in Quick Mask Mode tool.

While you are in Quick Mask Mode, select the Gradient Tool.

Select all or press down ctrl + A keys and drag a line from top to bottom just half part of your image space and the result will look like this:

Back to the Standard Mode which you can find in the Tool Box. After that press Delete button on the keyboard.

Turn on snow layer visibility now, but you still need to work on Snow Center layer and refine it using erasing tool.

Make it as natural as possible, so you can almost see snow effect at the center of the text.

Step 4 - Creating Snow Melting Down Effect

Activate Melt Down layer and turn off the two other layers visibility. Then look up to the menu Image > Rotate Canvas > 90o CW to rotate the canvas.

Go the menu Filter > Stylize> Wind and then repeat that step again for one time.

Look up to menu Filter > Sharpen > Sharpen Edges to get more sharp effect on the melting snow. We would need other effect so we should go to the menu Filter > Brush Stroke >Accented edges.

The melting down snow will look like a water drop, but much thicker than water. We need to add more effect on it. But first, rotate the image canvas back by entering menu
Image > Rotate Canvas > 90o CCW.

Go to the menu Filter > Stylize >Diffuse and choose the option Darken Only:

We are about to finish this tutorial, but you need to set up the bevel and emboss style that will do in your effect layers (snow center and melt down layers) . Insert values shown in the picture below for that each layer.

Activate all the three layers together including the black background, and here is the result:

Creating a Perfect Selection in Photoshop (3)

noreply@blogger.com (Audee) — Mon, 11 Jun 2007 09:01:00 +0000

Step 3 - Finishing touch

Use Eraser tool to finish your main object which has clear background as good as you want. You can set the brush tip as you desired for this purpose (depend on how complicated your main object would be).

IMPORTANT TIPS :

If you want a good result, choose a smooth tip brush rather than a sharp line brush, to create a natural edited image.
Adjust the opacity of this eraser tool before, because this also helps to create blending effect between the main object and its background.

Creating a Perfect Selection in Photoshop (2)

noreply@blogger.com (Audee) — Mon, 11 Jun 2007 08:53:00 +0000

Step 2 - Set up smoothness and feather range

Make it a clear selection now by setting up smoothness and its feather.

Enter the menu Select > Modify > Smooth, and type 1 inside the dialogue box.

Enter the menu Select > Feather for 2 pixels feather radius.

Go the menu Select > Inverse and press Delete key after you duplicate your main object's layer.

The result of these sort actions will show like this:

Creating a Perfect Selection in Photoshop (1)

noreply@blogger.com (Audee) — Mon, 11 Jun 2007 08:30:00 +0000

There are ways to create a good selection over an object. This technique is especially used in order to separate the object that we need to edit from its background. Professional Photoshop User tends to make a selection in a very neat technique. When they deal with object like animal fur or human's hair, this basic way tutorial might not be counted. But somehow you need to know how right? Let's take a look.

Step 1 - Optimizing the use of Magic Wand Tool

I recommend this tool, because it is easiest and fastest tool for the beginners. One thing to remember is that this tool will work optimize if you adjust the object color channel a little bit. The purpose is to find a sharp contrast between the main object and its background, so it would easily picked by the Magic Wand Tool based on its hues sample color and contrast.

Find the Color Channel and choose the most contrast hues among the other channels, here I pick Red Channel.

Set the Magic Wand Tool tolerance in the range of 50, then put this tool on any area of your main object. You will find your main object 85% selected automatically.

Back to the RGB Channel and see how it is done in colored mode.

As you can see, it is not yet a perfect 100% finished selection. You can add sub selection inside the main object using Elliptical Marquee Tool. Just hold the shift key and drag your mouse at the same time to add selection inside and alt key to subtract.

A finished selection will look like this:

Creating Vector Shape Object in Photoshop

noreply@blogger.com (Audee) — Sun, 10 Jun 2007 03:16:00 +0000

Step 1 - Separate the object from its background

Select your desired image figure or image object. Just make sure that your object selection is having a perfect shape, because you won't need the entire image element to create this shape vector object.

Hence, delete its background to do so.

Step 2 - Creating paths from the selected object

Remember not to deselect your object after you have separated it from its background. Keep the selection area on, then press Delete.

After you have empty selection area, use Paint Bucket Tool to fill it with black color. This is a very useful trick to make a clear and clean vector shape object.

Go to the menu Window > Paths and make work path from the selection by clicking this icon tool:

You will find your selection turned into this path selection:

Step 3 - Defining custom path

Go to the menu Edit > Define Custom Path then your work custom path will be created in a second after:

Find your own custom path in Tool Box by choosing Shape Tool, then press Custom Shape Tool.

Go to the Sub Menu Bar and check your custom path object. If you have followed this tutorial in a good way, I make sure you would be able to create vector graphics using your own custom path object as you like. ; )