Need to design a holiday Christmas card? This week, I'm going to show you how to make a simple Christmas card that you can send out to your clients, friends and family. This is an intermediate Photoshop tutorial where you'll be using the Custom Shape Tool among other things. Follow these steps, watch the video tutorial and you will be creating your very own stunning Christmas card design in no time!
Here is the design that we are going to create:
Step 1: Creating the Red Background Design
Open a new Photoshop document that is 1000px by 600px. Remember that if you are creating your Christmas card for print, set the Color Mode to CMKY and the Resolution to 300. If you are just using your Christmas card for the web, set the Color Mode to RGB and the resolution to 72.
Make sure your foreground colour is set to white and your background colour to black. Fill your background colour with white by going to Edit -> Fill -> Foreground colour. Next, go to Layer -> Layer Style -> Gradient Overlay. Add the Gradient Overlay setting below. For your Red Gradient, use the colour values #be0000 and #4e0001.
Now, you have your red background layer and next, we are going to add a little texture to it. To do this, duplicate the Red Gradient Layer that you just created. Remove the Gradient Overlay (click off the 'eye') so that this layer is just white. Go to Filter -> Noise -> Add Noise and enter the settings below.
Go to Filter -> Blur -> Motion Blur and add the settings below.
Stretch your texture using Edit -> Free Transform until you are happy with what you have. Switch this layers blending mode from Normal to Overlay. Your background is now complete.
Step 2: Adding Text
Select the Type Tool. You can use any font here that you want and of course, you can write any text here that you want as well. I used Arial Bold, 72pt and wrote the words 'Happy Holidays'. Make sure that your words are written in black and then, decrease the Fill to 40%.
Go to Layer -> Layer Style -> Outer Glow. Add the settings that are below. If you used a different font or different text, you may have to adjust the settings here until they look right.
You should now have something that looks like this:
Step 3: Adding The Corner Elements
Select the Custom Shape Tool from the Toolbox to the left of your stage. Click on where is says 'Shape' in the top toolbar. You will now need to load all of the custom shapes. To do this, click on the small arrow to the right (follow the video below if you get lost here). Select the ornament that you would like to use and position it in the corners of your design. Use the Free Transform tool (Edit -> Free Transform) to resize and position this element in your design.
Below is the custom ornament that I chose to use in this design:
You should end up with something like this:
Step 4: Adding The Christmas Tree Design
To add your Christmas tree design, you will have to use your Custom Shape Tool again. Select one of the snowflake shapes that is in the Custom Shape Tool menu. Add a snowflake to your stage. We want to add a Drop Shadow to the snowflake so go to Layer -> Layer Style -> Drop Shadow. Add the settings below:
Copy this snowflake over and over and place the snowflakes in the shape of a Christmas tree. Select different snowflake shapes from the Custom Shape Tool Menu and keep adding these snowflakes as well until you are happy with your Christmas Tree design. You should begin to get something like this:
Keep copying and adding different snowflakes until your Christmas Tree design is complete and exactly how you want it. Congratulations!!
Video Tutorial
Part 1:
Part 2: