Using Photoshop to Make a Halloween E-Card

These instructions will demonstrate how to create an ecard using photoshop and a couple of Halloween assets. The goal of these instructions is to teach you the basic controls needed to complete your own ecard. Meaning that while we use certain stock images of festive art, it is generalized information that allows you to get creative and choose your own images. This can range from custom fonts, special images, and even custom messages.

The goal of these instructions is to teach someone with minimal knowledge of photoshop how to create and edit their card. This means that you will already need to know how to operate a computer, downloaded photoshop, and have some basic computer skills. This is not limited to beginners and can even help those with minimal experience in photoshop. This is meant to be used as a guide by anyone wanting to make a festive ecard but the instructions follow a Halloween theme just in time for October 30th.

But first, what is an E-Card?

An E-Card is just a digital version of a postcard or greeting card Why make one? E-Cards make wonderful gifts that can be funny or let someone know that you’re thinking about them. They can also be an effective tool in the professional environment too. E-Cards are fairly easy to make, are cost effective, and very customizable.

Functional Computer with Photoshop Installed

• Magnetic lasso tool – search for magnetic lasso in the top right search bar or look for the icon. The magnetic lasso will snap edges into place, in case you have an irregular shape, it facilitates the process of copying the image and dragging it elsewhere.
• Move tool – search for the move tool in the top right search bar or look for the icon. The move tool will grab the selected layer and move it to where you choose.
• Horizontal type tool – search for horizontal type tool in the top right search bar or look for the icon. This tool will display a box and you will be able to type horizontally.
• Opacity – The opacity tool is found on the layers section, just above your first layer. You can change the opacity level, which means it starts to fade as the percentage goes down.
• Layers – There is a layer section found at the bottom right of your page. Every time you create something like a background color, a photo or any other edit, there will be a new layer.
• Paint bucket - search for a paint bucket tool in the top right search bar or look for the icon. You can right click, then choose a custom color, and click ok. This will change the background color.

(C:/Users/adria/Downloads/06_PS_Cheatsheet%20(3).pdf)

Before actually creating an E-Card, it is generally a good idea to brainstorm.

The first step is to come up with what you want to say on your E-Card. Depending on the occasion or reason why you are making an E-Card, the text that you put in it will obviously change. For this example, we are using Halloween as the occasion. The next step is the fun one, but it can also be a little overwhelming sometimes: personalization. This is where you want to think about what backgrounds or colors you want to use for the E-Card. Depending on the situation, some of the color schemes and images that you want to include will come naturally. In our example, since we are doing Halloween, we chose to include spooky images and a color scheme that fits Halloween well.

Click Create New and select the size you want for your project, default is what i used and works just fine.

Next You can drag any images you want to use from your files into the document, doing so should give you a new layer each time. If anything goes wrong Ctrl Z to undo your mistakes

Once everything is in and set into its own layer, click each imported layer and select the option Rasterize Layer, this will allow you to edit the photos.

Now to remove backgrounds on photos you don’t want, you can use the magnetic lasso tool to trace around the image. There are many ways to do this sort of step but Magnetic lasso is ideal for irregular shaped objects as it can determine and follow the outline of an object automatically.

Trace around your object so an outline like this appears, you can click to place a square which will hold the outline in place, if you make a mistake you can hit delete to go back a square, if you want to remove the outline made Ctrl Z works best.

When finished, click the square you began with to close the loop, An outline like this should appear. Then you can press Ctrl j to copy the selection into a new layer. Make sure you do this in the correct layer or it will not copy the desired object.

From here you can close the eye next to the layer you made the copy from to check that it is the desired image, once you’re satisfied you can drag the original layer into the trashcan to delete the layer. Now you should be able to see your background image and the object in the layer above.

At this point you can use the move tool to drag the object and make it the desired size. I also used the layer opacity tool at the top right of the layer menu to make our ghost friend more transparent these can be done at the same time. You can also duplicate the object by using Ctrl j until you are satisfied with the number of objects, layers, and opacity.

From here I decided to give a nice spooky background color, selecting the gradient tool option you can scroll to find the classic paint bucket and then use the color selector in the lower left corner to pick the desired shade then just click your background layer and you're set.

By this step I changed my mind on the desired setting and just deleted the layer and repeated the first few steps. If you do this make sure you move the layer to the right location or the ghost may just disappear. Layer order does matter in the menu the lower down a layer the further back it is.

Finally we can put in text for the e-card selecting that big T i chose a horizontal text box. Once the box is made you can decide on font and size. To change placement hold Ctrl Z and move the boxes that appear with your cursor. There’s plenty of room to play around more with these tools and make something truly terrifying so have fun!