Hello all my artsy friends! I am back with the nondestructive shadowing technique I talked about in my washi tape tutorial from last week. Now that you have your digital washi tape made, you can add some dimension and reality to it with the Dodge and Burn tools. You may be familiar with this technique, but I am going to show you how to use these tools in a nondestructive way that allows you to adjust the effects in the end.
First, let’s take look at the impact this technique has on your layout:
Notice how the tape looks like it is actually attaching the frame to the page on the right side, as opposed to just laying on top of it on the left? This effect is easy to achieve with the following steps.
Step 1. Place the washi tape where you want it on the page. Create a new layer above the washi tape in the layers palette. Fill this layer with 50% gray and set the blend mode to Overlay. In the fill dialogue box, make sure Preserve Transparency is unchecked – if it is checked, no color will appear. When you change the blend mode to multiply, the gray layer will disappear.
Step 2. Now select either the Burn or the Dodge Tool from the toolbar. I usually start with the Burn tool to place shadows in the recessed areas, then follow with the Dodge tool to add highlights to the raised areas. Paint the effect on with a a soft round brush the diameter you want it to appear. (I used a 36 pixel brush set at 10% Hardness.) You can see the Dodge and Burn settings I generally use below:
Step 3. Create a new 50% gray layer above the one you created in Step 1. This layer is for the effect that you did not use in Step 2. (If you used the Burn tool first, use the Dodge tool on this layer, or vice versa.) The diagram below shows you where I placed the Dodge and Burn effects in the example above:
Step 4. Make any final adjustments to the Dodge and Burn layers by adjusting the opacity of the layers to your liking. This is one of the advantages to using the 50% gray layers to apply the effects. If you apply them directly on the washi tape (element) layer, you can’t make any final adjustments in the end should you find that they are too bright or too dark. This is also why I like to create two separate 50% gray layers – one for the Dodge effect and one for the Burn effect. With each effect on its own layer, you can adjust them individually.
And that is all there is to it! Here is a look at the finished layout (made with goodies from this week’s SOSN sale).
Until next time ~
Judie (HeyJude)
Chippi -Christie- says
Such a neat trick, Judie!! Thanks!!!!