Creating a Blog Banner Using Photoshop Elements

Today I’m going to explain how I made my blog banner.  I combined my papercraft and computer skills to create my final product.

  

Materials Used

• Line drawings of my logo components (hand and Moxie feline) all at resolution 300ppi.  To see how I created my line drawings, see this post. 
• Handmade card backgrounds 
• Scanner 
• Photoshop Elements which you can find here or an older version like I use can be found here.

Creating the Logo Portion of the Banner 

Using Photoshop Elements I screened a variety of backgrounds that I had made for cards.  I accomplished this as follows:

1. I opened a line drawing of my hand logo in Photoshop Elements. 
2. Using the paint bucket tool I filled the hand with color. 
3. Next I scanned one of my background creations into the computer at resolution 300ppi and opened it in Photoshop Elements. 
4. I dragged the background layer into hand logo layer and repositioned the background layer until I liked the effect within the hand. 
5. The background layer was then grouped with the hand layer.  This allows the background to only show through the hand.
6.  I saved the file with a unique name as a Photoshop document. 
7. The remaining backgrounds were auditioned in the same manner and I selected the one I liked best.

Once the hand portion of my logo was set, I completed the logo as follows:

1. Opened a line drawing of Moxie the feline and dragged into the hand layer.  Positioned her to my liking. 
2. Colored all remaining portions of the logo. 
3. Added text layer for the words “Polished Moxie”. 
4. Added text layer for the words “Concepts and Designs”. 
5. Added text layer for copyright. 
6. Saved file with a unique name as a Photoshop document. 
7. Merged all the layers and saved this file as a Photoshop document with another unique name.

The background I selected is one that I made by rolling watercolor paints on Canson watercolor paper using a brayer.  This is the final logo I created for my blog banner.

Creating the Final Banner

Using Photoshop Elements I completed the banner as follows:

1. Opened the saved merged logo I created above and the scan of the background I had used in the hand of this logo. 
2. Opened a blank document of size 1000 pixels wide by 300 pixels tall with resolution 300ppi.  This was my working document for creating the banner. 
3. Dragged the scanned background into the working document and stretched it to completely cover the blank canvas. 
4. Dragged the logo into working document and resized it to fit into position at the left side of the banner. 
5. Used text tool to create tag line in dark blue.  Sized and positioned it across the banner to the right of the logo. 
6. Selected the text and used the warp text icon to select the style of the warp.  I’ve selected flag.  You can play with the slides until you see an effect to your liking. 
7. Selected the logo layer and sampled the gold color in the crown. 
8. Duplicated the text layer, selected the text in the duplicate layer and changed the color to gold.  Repositioned the gold text so that it looks like a shadow to the text in the original layer. 
9. Repeated steps 5, 7, and 8 for the second tag line in the lower right corner.  I did not use any style on it, therefore, I skipped step 6. 
10. Added a new layer behind the logo layer. 
11. Used the elliptical marquee tool with its feather option set to 18px on this new layer to create a gold ellipse behind the logo and sized it to my liking. 
12. Saved file with a unique name as a Photoshop document. 
13. Resized the entire banner to 72ppi with a 1000 pixel width and 300 pixel height.  Saved file as a Photoshop document with a unique name and then as a jpeg.

This final jpeg is what you see at the top of my blog as my banner.

I used this banner as a base to create my Etsy shop banner.  In this case I added a dark navy edge around the entire banner using the rectangle tool.  This was to emphasize my banner at the top of my shop.  I then resized it to meet the Etsy specifications.  You can see this altered banner at my Etsy shop.

Tidbit of wisdom from the experience: Save your various files as Photoshop documents with unique names.  The minute you save a file as a jpeg without saving it as a Photoshop document first is the time you will need a component of that file.  Alas, it will no longer exist as a separate layer and you will have to build it from scratch again which tends to make you a cranky pants.
 

Thank you for visiting and I hope you come back soon!

Page Content © 2010 Polished Moxie Concepts and Designs