Product leaflet designing - watch (crop, mask, text, gradient)

In this lesson:

Formulation of requirements for the promotional leaflet

We try to create promontional leaflet of Certina watch in this lesson. There we get the photo of watch and information that leaflet will have resolution of half of A4 paper. (210 mm width and 149 mm height).

Download this photo hodinky-certina-fotka.jpg in full resolution and open it in Adobe Photoshop.

Create new document (File -> New...) using given dimensions and resolution 600 ppi (what is ppi).

Move photo to our document. Folow these three steps:

• Choose Rectangular Marquee Tool and choose whole area of picture (whole photo will be framed with interrupted line) or press CTRL+A and all pixels will be selected.
• Copy all pixels to our empty document. It's possible to copy all pixels to computer's clipboard. You can use shortcut CTRL+C or choose Edit -> Copy in menu.
• Open empty document and paste document using CTRL+V shortcut or Edit -> Paste in menu.

Close picture of watch after inserting photo to empty document.

Photo processing

The situation after adding picture to document you can see in the picture below. To make our document well arranged, rename this layer to "Watch photo" (double click to layer's name).

Step 1 - remove background using layer mask

We need photo without background for our project. We'll remove background of this layer using layer mask.

Choose "Watch photo" layer and create Layer Mask (clik to Add layer mask icon) .

Step 2 - application of mask to selection

Using Quick Selection Tool make quick layer selection and choose area around watch. We try to draw to the area outside the watch (icon of this tool has small symbol of + inside). When we select watch, it's possible to press ALT and symbol will change from + to - and draw to area which you don't want to include. Because we use layer mask, we do not worry about any imperfection in the selection, because selection can be changed at any time later.

It's possible to use other tools to make selection. When we are ready, choose layer mask (white rectangle next to layer preview) and use Paint Bucket Tool to fill this selection with black color. We make this area invisible.

Remove this selection using CTRL+D shortcut (menu Select -> Deselect). Use Brush tool to remove imperfection (change black or white color as you need). This process you can see in the picture below.

If you fill any area by mistake you can correct it by switching black to white color a correct this mistake. You can use X key to make this process smooth.

Step 3 - leaflet background

We use Gradient Tool in order to make background. Nowadays, this tool is used very often. Select Gradient Tool and choose suitable color and gradient type. If you select suitable color and background, you can see preview of this gradient. Create new layer for background (below layer of watch) and name it asi "Background Gradient". Fill this layer with your gradient. Last thing which you can see in the video below is changing tint of background using Hue/Saturation tool (CTRL+U).

You can try to use different colors and type when you are making backgrond (we use radial type in order to highlight our watch). Final picture could look like this picture:

Step 4 - adding text information

We need to insert text information to our leaflet. Add this text:

• Brand of watch - CERTINA - it's the most important title and it has to be readable. We use Myriad Pro font in our case (it's sans-serif font).
• Type of watch - DS PODIUM - it's also important entry. You can use same rules as are written above.
• Other technical information about watch. For example, insert this text below picture. Specifikace: Provedení: náramkové Velikost: pánské Styl: sportovní Chronograf: ano Pásek: kůže Tvar: kulatý Materiál: ušlechtilá ocel Diamanty: ne Sklíčko: safírové Vodotěsnost: 100 Strojek: quartz

Final result you can see in this picture.

HomeworkDomácí úkol

Choose other common product and create similar leaflet (use same dimension and resolution).

Try to find another leaflet of watch in magazines or on the Internet. Bring it to lesson and describe similarities and differences.

Further reading

Questions

1. Why is it better to erase parts using Mask layer (what is the disadvantage of using eraser tool?).