Shell's Tutorials

Draw Tool

I'm going to show you a couple of ways the Draw Tool can be used

First we're going to look at Single line

Open a new canvas using the following settings

Flood fill the canvas with a colour of your choice

Click on your Draw Tool and go to your tool options palette

Click on the arrow at the side of the Line Style window and a drop down menu will open

Choose the line style you want to use.

On your colour palette, choose the colour you want your line to be

Go to Layers > New Raster Layer. When the widow opens, Click OK

Now, draw a line across the top on your flood filled canvas

Go to your layer palette, right click on the top layer and click on Duplicate

Now go to Image > Flip

This will flip the duplicated line so it goes to the bottom of your canvas

If you need to, you can use your mover tool to centre the lines

Now, add another layer and draw a line down the side of your canvas

Go to your layer palette, right click on the top layer again and duplicate it.

Now go to Image > Mirror and your duplicated line will appear on the other side of your canvas

OK, we're now going to add some text

On your colour palette click on the little arrow that connects the top 2 boxes

This will put the colour that is in your foreground box, into your background box

Click on the text tool and click on your canvas

When the window type in your text and choose the text size and font. Make sure Antialias and floating are ticked

Click OK

We're now going to add a border

Go to Image > Add Border

A warning window will pop up telling you that a border can only be added to an image with a single layer and the layers will be merged if you add the border. Click OK. We want the layers merging anyway so doing it this way cut's out having to go to layers > Merge > Merge visible!

I added a border of 10 and made sure Symmetric was ticked

Click on your magic wand tool and click on the border so you get marching ant's around it

Click on the Inner Bevel icon and use the following settings (or any settings you prefer)

Save your image and you're done :o)

BEZIER CURVE

To see the printer friendly version of this tutorial, click HERE

We're going to use the Bezier curve to create text on a path

Open a new image, I made mine 500x500 because I like to have a lot of room

Make sure you have a colour selected in your top styles box and that your bottom styles box is set to null (no colour, pattern or gradient)

Click on your Draw Tool and in your tool options box choose Bezier Curve and in the line style, choose solid

I had my width set on 4 and make sure Create As Vector is ticked.

Now, on your new canvas draw a line from one side to the other. It won't be a solid line yet, it will look like a a thin, narrow box.

Move your mouse to any point on the line and press your left mouse button, a line coming from the main line will appear. Drag the line down and you will see the main line will change shape

Move your mouse to another point and drag the line up this time

When you let go of the second line you will see this (but obviously your line will different from mine!)

Now click on your Text Tool. Move you mouse so it touches the line you drew and you will see your text tool changes from an A to an A with a curved line under it. Press your left mouse button and your text entry box will open

Type in your text, choose your size and font style and make sure Anti alias and floating are ticked

Click ok

Your text will now be on your curved line

Go to your layer palette and right click on the Floating selection layer and choose Promote To Raster Layer

Still in your layer palette, right click on the Bezier Curve layer and Delete

Crop your image and you're done :o)