For this tutorial I'll be using the black gradient image that comes with our Keynote Address theme. Any large image will do, though you'll want it to be the size of your slide in most cases (1024x768 or 800x600). Open the file in Photoshop and let's get started.
Open the file
Open the file in Photoshop.
Make sure the image you want is NOT listed as the Background. If it is, you'll need double click on the word Background in the layers palette and you'll be prompted to change the name of the layer. Once you do that it will no longer be a background layer:
You should end up with something similar to the first image above, with one layer in the list, and nothing labeled Background.
Now that you have your image open and ready to go, you may want to add guides to the page, so that your cutout is in the exact spot you want it in. You don't need to do this, but it's handy. If you open the Info palette, you can see exactly where your guides will land on the image as you drag them down from the rulers.
|
You'll be creating a rounded rectangle shape that matches the cutouts found in our Keynote Address theme. Using the Shapes tool in Photoshop makes it easier to reselect the shape for making masks.
Choose your tool
For this demo, you'll create a rounded rectangle. Choose the Rounded Rectangle tool from the tools palette:
Custom shapes!
You can also use any of the other shapes (well, the line tool won't do much good for you), including the Custom Shape Tool. Click the tool, and then change the shape in the tool bar at the top of screen:
Make a windows logo cutout using the Custom Shape tool!
Draw your shape
Okay, now that you have the rounded rectangle tool chosen, you can draw your shape. If you created some guides, the cursor should snap to the guides if you get close to them:
Once you create your object, it should have its own layer in the Layers palette. Double click on the icon that represents the shape and change the fill color to black:
Double Click this icon
|
 |
Make the color Black
|
|
Now that you have your shape set, you need to add the drop shadow.
Add the shadow effect
Click on the object layer and choose Drop Shadow from the Layer>Layer Style menu
This brings up the Shadow settings window:
These settings match the shadows in the Keynote Address cutouts
You can adjust the settings however you want them, but make sure you don't use any other effects here, as they won't work properly for this tutorial (some other effects may get masked out). Click Okay to lock in the effect.
|
There are two ways to do this, the quick way, and the long way. The easy way works in Photoshop 7 and CS, the long way works in any version.
If you have Photoshop 7 or CS, you can simply click on your object and drag the Fill transparency slider down to zero:
This will make the object fill empty, but KEEP the shadow, which is what we want. We can then skip the long way and move to making the second mask.
If you have Photoshop 6 or lower (running in Classic most likely), you can't simply adjust the transparency of only the fill, so we need to dupe the layer and merge it with the shadow. You dupe the layer so you never damage the original (in case you make a mistake). To dupe the layer, drag the object icon to the duplicate layer icon at the bottom of the Layers Palette:
Grab the layer and drag it to the bottom of the Layers Palette
And drop it on the Duplicate Layer icon
You can then turn OFF all the layers but the copy (that includes turning off the original "background" image).
Next, create a NEW layer by clicking on the small triangle button at the top of the palette and choosing New Layer... from the pop-up menu. Notice the other two layers are turned off (not visible). This is important to do or we could mess up the effect in the next step.
Now that you have only a blank layer and an object layer showing, Choose Merge Visible from the same pop-up that you chose New Layer... :
This gives uyou a single image with a shadow as PART of the image, and not as a Layer Style. At this point you should havae 3 layers, with only the TOP layer set as visible.
Next, Right click (or Control click) on the HIDDEN version of the object layer, so you can copy the shape as a selection. Make sure your cursor is on the left most icon for that layer and NOT the mask, or you'll select the mask and not the layer transparency. It should look like this:
Doing this will give you a selection around the object, which you can see visible on the screen as a moving dotted line around the object (some people call these marching ants):
Once you've made this selection, you need to click on the other again. It should be the top most layer. This will be the one that DOES NOT have a shadow attached to it in the Layers Palette, it will appear as a single layer only:
Once you have it selected, you can add the layer mask by choosing Add Layer Mask>Hide Selection from the Layer menu:
You then need to turn off the other layers again, to make sure you can see the effect:
And here's the final effect (with the other layers turned off):
|
This one goes much faster, and uses some of the same steps that the long version did in the previous part of this tutorial
If you did the Short Version: Right (or Control Click) on the object layer (this should be the top most layer) and choose Select Layer Transparency
If you did the Long Version: Right click (or Control click) on the HIDDEN version of the object layer again, so you can copy the shape as a selection:
This will turn on the object layer again, but that's okay, because you need to turn on ALL the layers for this part anyway:
No matter which version you did (short or long) at this point you should something like this (except it'll be the entire image):
If you did the Short version, you may not see all of the layers, which is fine, but you SHOULD have at least the object and the background (or bottom) layers. In the last stap, you basically selected the shape of the cutout, with this selection still active, click on the bottom layer (labeled Layer 3 in the image above) and visit the Layers menu again to add the last layer mask. What you're doing is punching out one last hole in the background that's the same exact size and shape as your original cutout, so that the hole goes all the way through all the layers.
If you did the long version, the extra last step is to turn off the middle object layer again (it's not there in the short version):
|
Now that you've create your cutout, you can save it as a PNG or transparent Tiff, ready to be dropped into Keynote
Check the results
If everything went right, you should get something like this:
The red circle is just a close up of the effect. You can see the shadow in place, and the cutout is represented by the checkerboard pattern. If you weren't successful with all the masks, you will NOT see the checkerboard showing through. If that happens you 'll want to go back through the steps carefully to see if you missed one.
Saving the cutout
Choose Save for Web from the File menu:
For this example I chose a PNG format as it usually makes a smaller file than Tiff, and it holds transparency very well:
Click Save and name the file. Make sure you do NOT use spaces in the file. It's not a huge deal if you do, but since Keynote uses XML as its file format, spaces get written inside the file as "%20" which could cause problems in the future.
In this example I saved the image in a folder I created earlier. Just make sure you can find it again. Saving to the desktop usually works fine.
|
This technique can be modified to many different types of cutouts. If you're handy with Photoshop, you can use other effects, and even add shadows INSIDE the cutout (something we'll deal with in another tutorial). Creating cutouts with more than one cutout take a little more work, and eventually we'll be posting a tutorial for that as well.
Also, make sure you read the other two companion tutorials listed at the top of this page so you can actually USE your cutout in Keynote :)
|
