Aligning Layers
A lot of designers I know hate math, they
are right brained and cannot stand those pesky little
numbers cramping their creative style. Something you may not
be aware of is the fact that Photoshop is a pretty good
mathematician. Photoshop comes with an align and distribute
feature that does all the calculations for us.
Lets demonstrate this by creating a metal panel with some
rivets on it.
Start with a new document. 300 x 300 pixels.
Apply a linear gradient using the default
copper setting.
Create a new layer and name it "rivet"
Choose the elliptical marquee tool.
Change the gradient to radial
Draw a small rounded selection and fill with
the gradient.
Add a bevel layer style
Use the settings here. Make it a "pillow
emboss" to give the appearance of the rivet being recessed.
Here is the finished rivet
Duplicate the layer 3 times and roughly
space them out. Don't worry about precision at this point.
Link all the rivet layers in the layers
palette. The align feature will only work on linked layers
and wont effect the layers that are not linked.
Click the "distribute Vertically" button
from the top toolbar.
Notice the rivets are now evenly spaced.
Click on the align left button and notice
that they are now perfectly aligned.
The evenly spaced riverts.
Here I merged the rivets, duplicated the
layer and dragged it to the right hand side. I then used
curves and the hue/saturation controls to get a nice bluish
gray metal feel.
Have fun with the alignment tools and plaster all your images with rivets.
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