Hello all my artsy friends! I am back today with a quick tip for adding dimension to your digital elements with gradients in Photoshop and PSE. I don’t know about you, but I love including butterfly elements on my pages. They are included in so many digital scrapbooking kits, and Pink Reptile Designs even has a Build Your Own Butterfly kit available in the Retirement Sale that is going on right now. To make them really pop, though, you need to add some creative shadowing on top of the element to create a folded effect (as if the wings are actually moving up and away from the page), as well as a drop shadow beneath the element.
I am going to show you a quick way to add depth to an element with the Gradient Tool. This technique works the same in both Photoshop and PSE. Here is a look at the technique in action:
Notice how the wings on the butterflies look as if they are lifting off the page? You might think this level of realism if difficult to achieve, but it actually only involves a couple of quick steps. (BTW – I created all three butterflies with Pink Reptile Designs’ Build Your Own Butterfly Kit. If you like it, hurry up and grab it before it retires at the end of the week.)
Step 1: Prepare the layers
Start by placing the butterfly on the page. It is easiest if you position in horizontally (as opposed to tilted, as they appear on my page). I actually applied my gradients while the butterflies were horizontal, and then resized and tilted them afterwards. Next create a new blank layer just above the butterfly. With the new layer active, Ctrl/Click on the thumbnail of the butterfly to create a selection in that shape. This selection will apply the gradient only to the butterfly, and not the rest of the page.
Step 2: Create the Custom Gradient
For this step we are going to use the Gradient Tool and create our own custom gradient. Once you have created the gradient, you can save it for future use.
With the blank layer activated and the butterfly shape selected (as done in Step 1), grab the Gradient Tool. It looks like this in the tool menu:
Once you have the Gradient Tool activated, go to the menu (at the top of the workspace in Photoshop CC) and click on the gradient box to pull up the Gradient Editor.
Now you should see the Gradient Editor, which is where we will create our custom gradient.
You can start with any of the gradient presets because we are going to change it and create a custom depth gradient. However, I suggest that you start with the Foreground to Transparent gradient because it is the closest to what we want.
In the area below the presets, you will notice that there are two sets of sliders. The one on top controls the opacity of the gradient, and the one on the bottom sets the color of the gradient. Let’s start with the opacity sliders on the top. For these sliders, black is full opacity and white is transparent. First, change the two sliders on either end to white by clicking on the white box and then using the eyedropper tool (which will appear automatically) to change the color to white. Now you will need to add a new slider in the middle (set to Location 50%). You can do this by moving your cursor along the top side of the bar and clicking where you want the new opacity slider to appear. If it doesn’t come in right in the middle, you can adjust the position by manually entering “50” in the Location setting at the bottom of the gradient editor. Make sure the color of the box is set to black because we want the gradient to start at full opacity and then blur out as it moves horizontally across the object.
When you click on the new black slider, you should see two diamond shapes appear on either side of it. Grab the shape on the left side with your mouse and move it to Location 85%. Then grab the diamond on the right side and set it to Location 15%. These settings control how far out the shadow will go. Because we are just creating a crease or folded effect, we don’t need an extended blur. Here is what your opacity settings should look like:
Next, we are going to work on the color sliders. For this effect, you only need one slider in the middle of the bar (Location 50%). If there are any other sliders on the bottom of the gradient bar, you can delete them by clicking on the slider box and then clicking on “delete” in the Stops menu at the bottom of the Gradient Editor. Now click on the slider you created in the middle of the bar and choose a color that will appropriately shadow your element. Because my butterflies are lightly colored, I used a gray shadow (Hex Code: 737272). (You can bring up the color picker box by clicking on the color box at the bottom of the Gradient Editor.) If you are adding the effect to darker patterns, you can try using the color you normally use for the drop shadow.
Your color settings should look like this:
You can save the gradient you just created by clicking on the “New” button. Your gradient will then appear at the bottom of the presets menu. You can actually see mine in the screen shot above. To save it permanently, you will need to create a back up copy. You can do this by clicking on the “Save” button and choosing a location for the file.
Once you have finished with the gradient settings, click OK and the Gradient Editor will close.
Step 3: Apply the Custom Gradient
Now, it is time to apply the new custom gradient to your element. Make sure that the element shape is still selected by Ctrl-clicking on the butterfly thumbnail in the layers palette (as indicated in Step 1) and click on the left side of the butterfly and drag the gradient tool across to the other side and then let go of the mouse. You should see the gradient appear on your butterfly.
Now you will want to adjust the blending mode to your liking. I actually copied the gradient layer and applied two different blending modes on my butterfly. I set the first layer to Vivid Light at 80% opacity, and the second to Linear Burn at 68% opacity. Play around with the blend modes (or combinations) until you get the effect you want.
Step 4: Final Touches
The last step is to add a drop shadow to the butterfly layer to help create the effect that the element is flying off the page. Drop shadows are really a personal design choice, but here are the settings I used to give you an idea of how I achieved the effect on my page:
Here is the comparison between the original element (no depth gradient and no drop shadows), the depth gradient and the full version with both the depth gradient and a drop shadow:
I hope you have fun with this technique!
Until next time ~
Judie (HeyJude)
Christa (cfile) says
Great tutorial Judie! I love working with gradients and those butterflies are fabulous! I love what you created here. Thanks for the fun tutorial!
Christina Wells says
Thank you so much for this post! I’ve always wanted to use gradients this way but I haven’t understood how to set all the different options in the gradient tool. Now it really makes sense!
Thuria says
Thank you so much for this post! I adapted it for labels to seem curved by shadow. Really thankful as I was wondering how to do this.