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Embossing |
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| Create a new image. Make a new image, any size to accomodate what you want to make, here I've used 300 pixels by 300 pixels. Make the background the same color or pattern as the page it will be placed on. Here I've used #F2C0EE with 6% Monochrome Gaussian noise. You won't be copying the background along with the element, you just need it to match so that you can get the contouring done correctly. |
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Make a vector shape. You will need a shape for the embossing. You can use a preset shape, a ding font, a piece of clip art, or you can draw something freehand with the vector tools. For simplicity's sake, I'll use a font, Wingding's lower case "v". Click on the  text tool. Set the background swatch to any solid color and the foreground swatch to null. Choose Wingdings as the font. Make sure Vector is checked. Size doesn't really matter, it's going to be vector and therefore scalable. Click in the image to bring up the text dialog and type a lowercase "v". |
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Scale the object and take a selection. Switch to the  Object Selector tool. Right click and drag on a corner node to scale the object up while maintaining it's proportion. Objects-> Align-> Center in Canvas. Selections-> From Vector Object. Selections-> Load/Save Selection-> Save Selection to Alpha Channel. Turn off the visibility of the vector layer. Layers-> New Raster Layer. Selections-> Hide Marquee. You want to hide the marquee because it can be difficult to see the effect of the offset and drop shadow with it blinking around like it does. |
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Contour the shape. Effects-> 3D Effects-> Cutout. Set the swatch color to white. The Offsets and Blur will depend upon the size of your object. Here I've used Offsets of 1, Blur of 3, leave the Opacity at 100%. Layers-> New Raster Layer. Effects-> 3D Effects-> Drop Shadow. Again, the settings depend upon the size of your object, set the swatch color to black. Here I've used the same settings as the cutout, Offsets of 1, Blur of 3, Opacity at 100%. Selections-> Select None. |
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Soften and adjust the contouring. On each of the contouring layers, Adjust-> Softness-> Soften More. Using the Opacity slider in the layer control palette, adjust the opacity of each layer to suit. Here I've changed the drop shadow layer to 20% and the cutout layer to 50% opacity. The amount of opacity will depend entirely upon the color of your image, darker colors will need more opacity and lighter ones less. Turn off the visibility of the background layer and it's ready to be copy/pasted into your layout. |
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