Photoshop CS3 for Screen Printers- P10: The toolbox is the heart of Photoshop CS3, and where you’ll find the tools you need to create your artwork and perform editing tasks. From the toolbox you can access the selection tools, shape tools, type tools, Crop tool, and eraser tools. These are basic tools that any screen printer or graphic artist needs. | 246 Part II Creating Artwork and Logos Creating Edges Let s finish off the edges of our new design by using a variety of tools. You ll have to experiment with several to get the effect you want and I ll walk you through a few suggestions here. Creating edges around an image allows you to remove the hard edge of the rectangular image by distorting it in some way or painting over it. In this procedure we ll use our Dallas Zoo example file again. 1. Choose the background layer from your image it s a picture fill or gradient . Depending on what you ve done to the layers it might be called a Normal layer or something else. 2. Change the foreground color to white in the toolbox. You might want to experiment with other colors too such as the color you ve chosen for your text or a color in your focus image. 3. Choose the Brush tool from the toolbox and click on the Airbrush icon E in the options bar. This will enable airbrush capability. 4. Choose a soft round brush like Airbrush Soft Round 100 and change the Flow to 75 percent in the options bar. Spray around the outside edges of the image. 5. Try other brushes and colors too increasing and decreasing the Opacity and Flow settings and the brush size. Use the History palette to erase any mistakes. Figure 12-12 shows an example of what your edge might look like. 6. Undo the brushstrokes. 7. Choose the Smudge tool from the toolbox. Work around the edges using this tool to create an edge effect. Experiment with various brushes and modes. 8. Experiment with the Blur tool choosing different modes and strengths. Figure 12-12 shows a file we used in our shop back in 2002 to promote the Dallas Zoo. It was so nice I used it again here 247 Chapter 12 Layer Basics Figure 12-12 Creating an edge effect The best way to get to know what each tool can do for you is to experiment. If possible work through this exercise several times choosing different settings for the tools each time. Flattening Layers With the design finished you ll now .
