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[Josh]

In this tutorial you will learn how to use the polygon lasso tool to make cut out shapes.

First, create a new document with a transparent background. For this tutorial I used 400x125 pixels.

Next, select the Polygon Lasso Tool.


Draw on your canvas with the polygon lasso tool. To do draw straight lines hold down the shift key. Draw any kind of shape you want. Fill the selected area with black, you can change the fill later, but for now it's easier if you use black. I created this shape:


After you've done that, press ctrl+d to deselect what you just drew. Now draw another shape, except this one is in the middle and a little bigger. Fill the area with black. Here's what I drew:


Press ctrl+d to deselect, and then draw one more shape. Once again, fill the area with black This is what it now looks like:


Now, grab the magic wand tool and click on each of the black areas while holding shift. With those areas selected, duplicate your current layer. Click the eye next to the first layer.

So what you have now should look something like this:


OK, now you have a few options. You can either fill the selected area with a solid color and/or a pattern. Or you can fill it with a background image. I'm going to go with a background image.

Open up the background image you want, choose the rectangular marquee tool and select the whole image. Press ctrl+c or go to Edit > Copy to copy the selection.

Now go back to your cut out image, and go to Edit > Paste Into. This will paste the image only into the selected area.

Now, go back to the first layer of the image. Press the eye next to it if it isn't already visible. Click the eye next to the layer that you filled with the background image. This will make it so you will only see black on your image. This is good, because now we can select it again since it became deselected when we pasted the background image into it. So take your magic wand tool again and click on each of the black areas while holding Shift.

You can now click off the eye next to the layer filled with black, and click back on the eye next to your layer with the background image. You will now see that the layer with the background image is selected. The reason we have this selected again is so we can apply some layer styles. Click the little "f" in the bottom of the layers window and go to stroke.
Here are the settings you should use with stroke.


You can also apply other layer styles, like bevel and emboss. After you've applied the layer styles you want, you're done. Save it as a gif, and make sure you allow transparency. The transparency gives the effect of it being cut out.

Here is what mine looked like when it was done:


and here's another example I made using the same effect:

[Daniel8_9_3]

that looks pretty cool Josh i am guessing its photoshop right?

[Josh]

Yep

[Daniel8_9_3]

i wonder if it can be done in Paintshop 7

[Xan]

thats great thanks

[Wolfcruiser]

I don't have "the little "f" in the bottom of the layers window".

Maybe this is in 7. But I have Photoshop 5.5 and I can't find it in my layers window anywhere. Where can I find stroke at in 5.5?

[Joe]

Edit>Stroke

[_^KaI^_]

[leo]

welcome to the forums kai

yeah i wouldn't mind knowing how you did that pattern josh

[_^KaI^_]

how can you do this whit the text.
how can move the text??

[Timo]

[Josh]

The text moving is quite simple. It uses tweens with opacity and position. This weekend I'll make one for you. Don't have time during the week because of school and lacrosse

What pattern are you talking about leo?

[Josh]

Actually, I can attatch the psd if you would like to look at it. You may not have the fonts though.

Attached File(s)

 newsiglayout.psd ( 462.23K ) Number of downloads: 143

 

[Joe]

i could make a tutorial on how to make animations using Ulead GIF Animator 5 if anyone would find that useful?

[Josh]

That would be cool joe, only problem is the program isn't free