Christmas Tree 1. Open a new file that is 8 inches height and 11 inches wide, 300 resolution, RGB mode, and a white background. 2. Choose the gradient tool from the tool box and then go to the options bar at the top and click inside the gradient to access the gradient editor. 3. Make a 2 color gradient from a nice rich green, the light color green needs to be on the left side of the gradient and the dark green needs to be on the right side of the 99bd2b gradient. Click Ok to close the gradient editor box and the click Ok again. If you would like to use my greens my light number was 99bd2b and my dark # was 111604. 4. In the option bar at the top choose a radial gradient. Click and drag from the middle top of the document to the bottom of the document to create a radial gradient. 5. Click on the new layer icon in the layers palette. 6. Go to the toolbox and find the custom shape tool. The custom shape tool is with the rectangle tool. 7. In the option bar choose the shape layers option 8. In the option bar at the top find the word shape and click on the small arrow pointing down. Choose the all option in the pull down menu. 111604 9. It will ask you if you want to replace the current symbol and you can click on OK. 10. Scroll through the symbols and about ¾ the way down you will find a circular symbol that is named registration target 2. 11. Hold down the shift key and click and drag to make the shape (try to get the shape as big as it will let you make it). 12. Go down to the very bottom of your Photoshop window (on the left side) and find a small number that is a percentage telling what percentage the window is scaled down to. In the box replace the number with 20 and hit enter. What should happen is that your document should be very small. 13. In the menu bar choose Edit > transform path > scale. Scale the symbol so that the rays are centered in the upper middle section with the outer circle being off of the document. 14. If you didn’t already you will need to hit enter to end the scale task. 15. Go back to the small number on the bottom of the screen and put in 30 and hit enter. You should be back with a bigger document. 16. Change your foreground color to white 17. In the layers palette make sure the layer with the symbol is selected. Look right above this layer and put the fill to 0. 18. At the bottom of the layers palette choose the new layer style icon (FX). Choose the gradient overlay option. a. Blend mode is Linear Dodge (add) b. Opacity 44% c. Gradient is Foreground to transparent (Click in the rectangle to choose a gradient) d. Style is radial e. Angle is 122 f. Scale is 40 g. Click OK 19. In the same place you found the layers palette and the channel palette look for the tab that says paths. Click on that path tab. 20. You will see the path for the custom shape selected in blue. Click anywhere in the gray area to deselect the path. This should remove the white lines around the custom shape. 21. Click back to the layers tab. 22. Choose the new layer icon in the layers palette. We will delete this layer in the end so make sure you put the lines for the Christmas tree on their own layer. 23. Choose the brush tool from the toolbox and choose white as the foreground color. 24. Draw the outline of the Christmas tree. We will only use this outline to fill with stars and then delete the outline. As your drawing put the top of the Christmas tree inside the radial custom shape. Make sure the lines for the Christmas tree are going on their own layer. 25. In the layers palette click on the new layer icon. The tree lines are the only thing on layer 1. You should now be on layer 2 26. In the toolbox choose the custom shape tool. 27. In the options bar choose the shape option 28. Go up to the options bar and choose the shape pull down menu. Choose the star shape from the menu. 29. Fill the tree shape with the stars. To make a star click and drag a little shape. Hold down the shift key so that the stars will not be distorted. Click and drag to make another one. You will start to notice that each one is being placed on its own layer. If you want the star to not be distorted at all hold down the shift key. Make sure to vary the size and make lots of stars. 30. Click off the eyeball for the line around the tree 31. For the star on the top of the tree choose the new layer style icon in the layers palette. 32. Draw a star on top of the tree. 33. Choose the outer glow option. (FX). Adjust the spread and size how you would like it. 34. Go back up to options bar and look for the snowflake shapes. 35. Create a new layer 36. Draw snowflakes around your tree using different opacities. Look up in the options bar to change the opacity for each snowflake. I used 10%, 20% and 40% for different snowflakes. 37. Create a new layer by clicking on the create a new layer icon in the bottom of the layers palette. 38. Choose the brush tool. In the toolbox. 39. On the right side of the screen choose the brush picker. 40. Click on the small arrow on the top right side and choose the calligraphic brushes from the menu. Replace click Yes, Save click NO 41. Choose brush 45 42. Drawing with the calligraphic brush draw some ribbons crossing the tree. You may need to practice a couple of times. Start by dragging your brush down and slightly to the right Keep going to the right End by taking your brush and drag down and slightly to the left 43. One you have the ribbons drawn ON THEIR OWN LAYER, go to the new layers style icon at the bottom of the layers palette, choose the gradient overlay. 44. Choose a green to white gradient for the gradient and click Ok. You may need to adjust your sliders several times. (If you prefer you could also try and red to white gradient or even a yellow to white gradient). 45. Adjust layers if you need to. If the starburst is a little off, go to that layer adjust the position. 46. If you wanted to you could go to the little star layer (the ones that fill the tree) and put a very small outgrow layer style on them. 47. You could add some text. 48. Save your file as the green Christmas tree. 49. Save your file as a jpg file 50. Save your file in your portraits folder.
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