Photoshop Tutorials

Preview of Final Results

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How to Create Business Template in Photoshop

Details

• Program: Adobe Photoshop CS4
• Difficulty: Hard
• Completion Time: more than 4 hours

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Resources

• blank html template

Copyright notice

In my design, thanks to kindness of PPUCh Tarczyn LLC, I am using two images that I’m not the owner of. However PPUCh Tarczyn LLC allowed me to use them in my tutorial with a restriction that they will not be populated, so you won’t see them in finished template nor in psd file. The one is CO₂ evaporator machine, and the second are lamellas in the header. I will use them as an example of importing client’s images into design. You can not as well copy them from tutorial’s images and using on your own. The rest of output of the tutorial (including html template with images and psd source) is under photoshoptutorials.ws license. The satellite image on the map in contact page is licensed to geoportal.gov.pl.

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Download the Source File

JA Room.zip | 0.53 MB

Download from Website

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Business Template Photoshop Tutorial

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Step 1 – Starting a new document

All right, let’s make some design. I will just admit that this design is based on a real order and was made with client’s guidance. We have a lot to do so we want every step to be as fast as possible. We need some guides to help us determine designs borders, for we will make our design 980px in width, but we will work on wider document. Math won’t hurt you, believe me. However the time would do so. We are going to make a document with guides the fastest way I know. I call it 0/100. The thing is that I play with canvas size and adding guides only on 0px position and on 100%. Did you ever notices that some of Photoshop inputs has absolute unit while some of them have units typed next to value? Like this:

And this:

On first image there is no chance to change the unit, because pixels is written on label rather than inside the input, so it is absolute. But try change the unit on second image from px to percent. See? It is possible and works! It should work every time when input has a value of it’s parent element – in percent case.

Now you will se what’s the trick is all about. We want our document to be 1200×1845 pixels. Now we want to have two guides that will center the area of 980 pixels. How to make it? Create a new document that is 1200px wide. Then divide this value by two so it will be 600px. Our design is 980px wide, we are dividing this value on two as well (490px) and then adding and subtracting it from documents center so we will have 600-490 and 600+490 which will give us 110px and 1090px. This could be problematic if someone can’t count quickly in mind and have not round dimensions. Yet there is really easier way that I’m using everyday and it requires a minimum of math. We want 980px design with inside margins of 20px each side (for safety reasons). Thus we are making a document of 940×1845 px and adding guides on 0px and 100%.

Then we are going to Image > Canvas Size and typing 40px in width (with relative measuring checked) for we want 20px each side.

And again we’re adding guides on 0 and 100%. Then we are going once again to Image > Canvas size, but this time we are leaving relative unchecked and typing 1200px in width. Quickly and with minimalized possibility of mistake. And we have our blank document done. It is 1200x1845px as we wanted and have centered area out bounded by guides.

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Step 2 – Noisy background

It’s going to be pretty easy step. Noisy backgrounds are quite popular these days (hmpf) and you probably have done more than one before this, but anyway I will show you how I am achieving them. Noisy backgrounds make design a bit grungy and they perfectly fit to solid colored shapes. Truly, they are overused. You can see them in most of modern designs. However, if they were bad, they wouldn’t be used, right? Slight noise is really old trick, and it didn’t came as design trend of 2008 or 2009. It is old as… it’s just really old. Every digital painter knows the power of texturing which noise is really simple kind of. And texturing in web design existed for a long of time as well. I think noises gets massive because of it’s ease of creation. Not only you get texture, it is also seamless, for sure. Alright, let’s make some noisy pixels. First of all, create a new layer and fill the whole area (SHIFT+F5 / Edit > Fill) with some light color like #efefef. Then go to (surprisingly?) Filter > Noise > Add Noise and type into input box something like 2.5px, set distribution to uniform and check monochromatic. Then go to Filter > Blur > Gaussian Blur and use 0.5 pixels radius. And that’s it.

You can eventually go to Filter > Brush strokes > Accented edges and again to Filter > noise > Add noise (same settings as before) so you will have more organic texture. But here I will use first one.

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Step 3 – Header background

First off, start with a horizontal guide. Level it on a height you want your header to be. I didn’t measured it really, just placed by eye. We will hold there nothing more but logo and search form. We need to be sure it will fit. Then make a shape, rasterize it later on (right click on layer in layers window and choose rasterize) and add a bit of noise as well to this shape (like 1.5-2.5 of percentage amount with monochromatic).

Then make a selection like this one…

…and fill it with gradient of some lighter color so you will get something like this.

Then go to Filter > Blur > Gaussian blur and blur it a little (radius on 6-10 pixels) so you will have smooth edge like here.

Use eraser tool and erase boundary parts so you will leave gradient only in the center. Use soft brush to do that. Here’s a tip: Make first erases with 100% opacity to smooth the edges and then lower it to 30% and make even smoother, long transition.

Now create a selection of base header’s shape, pick some dark gray color and add really small gradient on bottom. On the image below you can see gradient with 100% opacity. I lowered it later to 33% so it is really slightly visible.

And add another gradient on top. You don’t have to make a selection here for it will won’t extend the shapes boundaries for sure. Notice the start and end points of that linear gradient. Thanks to their places gradient will take a bit strong look.

I have added another- this time radial- gradient on the header background. Then deleted the part of top’s shadow (CTRL+Click on layer in layer’s window and hit delete). Oh, of course you are creating everything on separate layers. As you can see I have added some texture to the gradient, but actually don’t bother to that. It will be mostly unnoticeable. It’s just my habit to make gradients without pixel bounding. You can instead use Filter > Noise > Add noise so you will get similar (a bit weaker) effect.

Then change this gradient’s opacity to 55% and blending mode to Overlay.

The header is finished. Now we’re heading to add some logo and search form to it.

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Step 4 – Header elements

First off, I have prepared some logo of ghost company. It really doesn’t exist. Will not show you how to achieve it, you’ll place your own logo so it is pointless, but I will show you how to add a bit of life to solid shapes. All right, start with logo. Place it next to the guide. I won’t hide that I choose colors regardless to design. In fact, when you have a logo from your client it is important to fit it to the design. So you are creating whole design to fit the logo design (shape, colors, placement) or sometimes you are allowed to use grayscale logos so it is easier to fit them elsewhere.

I want to add some lights and shadows to logo, but it is semi gray on some parts, if I will add a shadow it will be slightly visible, so firstly I duplicated this layer and moved the one below 1px down. Then gone to Image > Adjustments > Brightness/Contrast and moved Brightness bar to -100. I also used a Gaussian Blur with really small radius so it is not so sharp on edges. We have easily done shadow underneath the logo.

For now all the layers in this step will be created as a clipping masks. I have written about benefits from using clipping mask layers so I will not duplicate my content. Remember also to make as many layers as possible in case if you will want to change something later. Here’s a sample.

Use transparent gradient with darker color than the logo and apply it from bottom to top. That will stay for a shadow.

If there is need, set this layer’s blending mode to multiply. As you can see you can make a gradient without any selection and we are 100% sure it will not outbound the shape. Let’s make some lights now. I’ve used two radial gradients, one for gray part and one for all shape that is really big and white, but its blending mode is settled to Overlay.

For pop up the shape we can make some emboss. It’s fast and simple task. Make a selection from logo (CTRL+Click on layer in layer’s window) and fill it with white color.

Do not deselect the image. Also make sure that you have active some selection tool so you could move a selection around image. Hit the left arrow on the keyboard so the selection will move 1 pixel to the left. Then hit DELETE. You can lower this layer’s opacity to something like 75%.

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Step 5 – Search form

We will make a search form without a send button. Its action will be passed to a search icon that is (visually) inside the input box. Actually it is common to send the form with Enter/Return key but for some reasons it is also good to make a clickable sender. Okay, use Rounded Rectangle Tool to make a white shape like this, align it with guide.

Duplicate this shape and change the color to some light gray (like #9b9b9b) by clicking on the color indicator next to layer’s name.

Now you can rasterize both layers. Let’s make some naming system here for better clarity. The white layer will be ‘base layer’ and the gray layer will be ‘shadow layer’. Okay, so head to the blending options of base layer and apply these settings: