Transcripts
1. Introduction and Class project: Nowadays, there are
countless AI platforms and gener int tools
that can help you create standing posters or ads. But understanding how to design them from scratch and how to use A generated assets to enhance your creative process
is truly essential. By the way, I'm Saji welcome to your first Addison
project in Ado Photoshop. In this class, you will learn a complete beginner
friendly work cloth for designing promotional
looking ads from scratch using Photoshop. We'll cover everything
from preparing your assets and using a
generated elements to blending, shadowing and creating
realistic lighting effects that make your ad stand out. By the end of this class, you would design your own
product ad just like this one. Ready to add to your
portfolio or share online. As your class project, I
would love for you to create a similar ad using the same workflow or
experiment on your own. Upload your project in the project and resource section and share it on social media. During the project creation,
if you need any help, feel free to post a discussion, and I'll be there to guide
you through the process. So open up photoshop, follow step by step, and let's start designing
your first ad together.
2. Setting up the canvas and basic elements : Today, we are going to
learn how to create this advertisement
using Adobe Photoshop. We'll be recreating the same ad, but in a slightly
different style. First, we need to
create a new document so that we can start
working on it. Let's create a document
sized 1080 by 1920 pixels, and you can name it
based on your ad. Once that's done,
the next step is to gather all the
necessary assets. I already have some
assets prepared. Most of them are
actually created using AI tools like
Perplexity or Chat GPT. You can do the same,
and I'll also include these assets in the project
files for you to use. Now, I'll use
Photoshop to remove the background and keep
only the main object. Then I'll drag that object
into our new workspace. In this case, our main asset
is a soft drink bottle. Place it properly on the canvas and convert it into
a smart object. This way, even if you
scale it up or down, the quality won't be affected, and you can make all your edits inside the smart object itself. Once that's done, let's create a simple background color and
select the gradient tool. From there, choose any
color combination you like. For this demo, I'm going
with shades of orange. Later we'll refine the background
with lighting effects, shadows, and other adjustments to make it look more dynamic. For now, I'm using a gradient that transitions from
dark orange to yellow. You can experiment with colors, maybe add a bit of red to
get a combination you like. Having a background
early on makes it easier to visualize how
your ad is coming together. Once you are happy
with the background, we can move on to the next part.
3. Slicing and arranging bottle pieces: Right. Now that we've got
our background ready, let's move on to the next step. Open up your work
file or in this case, your smart object and
extend it as needed. Whenever we create
a smart object, it's usually stored
inside a smaller file. Don't worry. You can
always extend it later. Let's move on to the next step. Grab your selection tool and start cutting
out the main object. For this project,
I'm working with a bottle that I've decided to
split into a few sections, maybe two or three parts. Just select a part,
hit Command plus Exon Mac or Control plus
Exon Windows to cut it, and then Command plus Shift
plus V or Control plus Shift plus V to paste it
right back in the same spot. I've divided this bottle into four parts to
make things easier. Once you've done that, double check
everything looks good. Next, press Command plus T or Control plus
T to transform. Move the anchor
point to any corner that's going to make it
rotate from that spot, which is super handy when
positioning your parts. Now rotate and move
each piece around. I'm pushing them into opposite
corners and giving them a little separation to
create that split effect, almost like the bottles being sliced into
different pieces. And remember, once you save it, all those changes
will automatically update in your main work file.
4. Adding Accent images : Next up we'll bring
in our accent image. In this case, a split watermelon since it's
a watermelon juice ad. Place it properly on the canvas and convert it into
a smart object. Hit Control plus T or Command plus T on
Mac to transform it. Hold Shift and
resize from the top or bottom so it lines up
with your cutout bottle. You can even skew it slightly to match the perspective better. Once it looks right, make sure it's properly aligned
in the layers panel, sitting nicely on top of
your cutout sections. Now hold Alt and
Rag to make a copy. Hit Control plus T
to transform it. Move the anchor point
again, rotate it a bit. This makes it way easier to
adjust your layout smoothly. Repeat this for however
many splits you've created. I'm doing it here for the
third and final piece. These little techniques
like skewing, cutting, rotating come naturally with
practice, so don't rush it. Take your time to experiment
and refine your work file. Once you have completed arranging all the
watermelon slices, you can save the file and
check the master file and make any adjustments and
alignments as needed. Oh
5. Adding shadow and other details : Once the layout looks good, let's add some shadows
to give it depth. Hold command or
control and click on the thumbnails of your separated layers to make selections. Create a new layer,
grab your brush tool, set it to black, and softly paint in the shadows
where the parts meet. Focus on the tighter
spaces or overlaps. That's where shadows
naturally fall. Always paint shadows
on a separate layer so you can edit or remove
them easily later. Now, try playing around with blending modes and opacity to make them look more natural. I like using multiply, then bringing down the
opacity to around 50 to 60%. It gives the object
a nice soft depth. You can also add general shadows to the left or right side of the bottle and even highlights on the opposite side
to make it pop. When you're selecting
multiple pieces, hold Shift plus command or Shift plus control to
select them all together. Then on a new layer, lightly brush in your
shadows or highlights. You can even use a bit of
white or light yellow for subtle highlights and experiment with blending modes
like overlay or multiply to get that
nice three D effect. Now that we've got
all that done, let's head back to
the master file. Before adding the final details, we'll create a shadow
for the whole bottle. Add a new layer, grab the elliptical selection tool and make an oval shape
just below the bottle. Fill it with a dark color
to create the shadow. Now head over to the filter tab, go down to blur and
pick motion blur. Set the angle so it runs
from left to right, and just add a bit
of blur enough to make the shadow spread
softly in that direction. Once that's done, go
back to filter blur, and this time choose
Gaussian blur. Add a touch more blur
here to smooth everything out and blend it nicely with
your product. That's it. Now you've got a clean, realistic studio style shadow that feels natural and balanced. Finally, select both the bottle and shadow
layers and link them together. That way, if you resize
or move anything later, everything stays perfectly
aligned and easy to manage. Next, let's add a
reflection for our product. First, make a copy of the bottle layer by
pressing Command or Control J. Flip it vertically and move it just below the original bottle
and align perfectly. Then add a layer mask and
select gradient tool, and from the options, select black and white. Adjust the gradient direction to control how the
reflection fades out. Tweak it until it looks natural. Once that's set, place this reflection layer just below the shadow layer so
everything aligns correctly. You can also reduce
the layer opacity to around 60 to 70% to make
it look more realistic.
6. Adding splashes and other elements : Now let's add some
splash effects. I've downloaded a splash
image from Adobe Stock, and I'm converting it into a smart object so the
quality remains intact. Next, scale and rotate it to
align with the cut bottle. Just adjust it until it fits
naturally with your design. To make it blend better, press Control plus T or
Command plus T on Mac. Right click and choose Warp. You can then adjust the splash shape to match
the curves of the bottle. Once you're happy
with the shape, add a layer mask and use a soft brush to erase
any unwanted areas. It's important to experiment with brush hardness and size. This helps you achieve a more natural splash instead
of a pasted image look. Now, to make the splash
color blend perfectly, we'll add a hue slash
saturation adjustment. Because we are using
a smart object, this process is non destructive. You can always tweak it later, select the red
tones and increase the saturation slightly to
get a bright, juicy red. Then adjust the lightness and highlights to match
your overall design. If you want, try experimenting
with the blending modes. I'm currently using hard light, but you can explore options like overlay or soft light
for different effects. If you duplicate the splash and encounter any
layer mask errors, just delete the existing
mask and reapply it. Sometimes smart object masks can cause conflicts
after flipping. Once everything
looks consistent, add layer masks to
all duplicates, refine the edges, and ensure the splashes align nicely
with your bottle cuts. Repeat the same steps for as many splash variations
as you'd like. Now let's move on to the last and final
splash of the design. Here also, you can just
start by duplicating the original splash image and
then delete the layer mask. Once you scale down and align
the splash with the design, you can proceed to add the new layer mask and start painting out the unwanted parts. Next, let's add a few
extra design elements to make the scene richer. Here, I'm using some
small watermelon slices. These were generated using AI. You can use downloaded
stock images or even generate your own directly in Photoshop if you're
using a newer version. Position and scale
the slices around your composition to
balance the frame. H.
7. Working on the Background : Now that we have aligned
the extra elements, let's move on to the
background and add extra shadows and highlights so that our product
pops out even more. Now, let's create
a new layer and softly paint in some darker
shades of red and green. This helps bring out a
gentle brightness in the center area and makes the
product feel more vibrant. I'm experimenting
with light yellow, green and red shades to create a warm gradient from white
to yellow to red to green. This adds depth and ties the colors together
with the product theme. Now for the center of the ad, let's continue the same process and start with a gentle yellow. Let's gradually
reduce the saturation and move towards to white. Finally, we will get a vibrant gradient blend of
all the colors together.
8. Adding text and taglines : Once the lighting looks right, we'll move to text and branding. I'm adding a tagline burst into freshness generated
using chat GPT. I'm using Poppins black
or Popins medium font. You can use any font you like and even experiment
with different ones. Change the text color to white and add some layer styles
for better contrast. Since white text can sometimes
blend into the background, let's apply a drop
shadow to make it pop. So we will select the
layer style option from the bottom of the layer panel
and select drop shadow. You can adjust the opacity, spread, and angle until
it feels balanced. Next, add a stroke, pick a color sampled from
your product such as red or green and set the blend mode to multiply for a
realistic effect, This creates a
subtle sticker like appearance that stands out
nicely against the background. After that, adjust the text size and position for
perfect alignment. Here, I'm just reducing the
first word of the tag line, so the freshness word
pops out even more. I'm also adjusting the layer
position of the tagline, so the splash or product
overlaps slightly with the text. This creates a nice
sense of depth. Finally, I'm adding
a secondary tagline. You can repeat the
same styling process to keep the design consistent. Here, I'm simply adding a slight shadow so the main
tag line has more visibility. Finally, do a bit of cleanup, fix the spacing,
tweak the lighting, and blend everything nicely. If you want play around
with color grading or extra effects until you
get the look you want. And remember, always
keep every new edit or element on its own layer so you can go back and make
changes easily. Once everything looks
great, your design is done. If you enjoyed or
learned something new, make sure to drop a comment. I'd love to hear your thoughts. Thanks for watching, and I'll
see you in the next one.
Sajeev .G Nair, Learn, Teach and Repeat
