How to load a custom style into Photoshop

For each post in my new series "100 Styles" I will post the file needed to recreate the styles in that days post, this post describes how to load that file into Photoshop to be able to use it and experiment with the style. The screenshots are from Photoshop CS4, but the process should be more or less the same in older/newer versions. Also, I'm using the Windows version of Photoshop, but as far as I know the only thing that's different on a Mac is that the dialogs look a bit different so that shouldn't make any difference. First download the file to a place that's easy to find, the Desktop is usually a good place (you can delete the file as soon as you've loaded it into Photoshop, so no need to be afraid of cluttering up the Desktop).

100 Styles 1 + 2 - Black and White - Text Effect with background

Text effect with background

As you may guess from the title this is the first of what will (hopefully) be a 100 posts where I experiment and showcase different effects you can create with Photoshop Layer Styles. I want to do this both to challenge myself and to provide something for others to be inspired by and learn from. The former will be achieved by me trying something new in each "stylistic experiment", and the latter will at least be helped by me posting screenshots of the settings used - as well as providing the style files for anyone interested to download and check out and experiment with.

My plan is to do one each week day until I'm finished, which means that unless something unexpected happens you can expect five per week (each week on a different theme) the coming 20 weeks. I'm going to start off by somewhat breaking that order and post two styles today (as it's technically the second day of the week even though I still haven't gone to bed the first), but in general that's how things will be.

Experiment 137: Christmas experiment

Plaster sculpture

For Christmas this year I wanted to give my sister something special, and since she likes playing instruments and other music related things I thought I'd create a small sculpture for her.

Experiment 136: A room with a view

Created in Camera Raw and Photoshop CS4

A "happy accident": I overdid the sharpening and liked how it interacted with the texture and noise in the image.

Experiment 135: Who's the child now?

Created in Photoshop CS4 Extended

Experimenting a bit with the Distort-Polar Coordinates filter today.

Experiment 134: Waves of conscience

Created in Photoshop CS4

Experimenting with actions and transformations, and the Lens Correction filter!

Experiment 133: Bird of Paradise

Created using Photoshop CS4 Extended and Apophysis 2.02

Been a while since my last real experiment, but here's another. Hope you enjoy. At least I enjoyed creating it, and that's the main thing :)

Dissection of an image

Today I thought I'd dissect the above image (the header of my - hopefully - funny site http://www.alien-jobs.com/ ). Hopefully you'll find it interesting, and perhaps even learn a bit about Photoshop.

I don't remember the exact steps it took to arrive at this setup, but in any case, at the bottom there is a layer which looks like the above (it's actually two due to the process through which I ended up with this image, but it could be done with one layer). It might seem like a plain blue box, and that's the base, but at the edges there's a 1px stroke with a special gradient (you might have to look at the larger version to see it). You'll see later that it's made to fit the strokes around the menu bar while at the same time fitting with the tone of the rest of the header.

The city is in overlay mode to fit in with the background color while still letting both light and dark values affect the end result. If you're interesting in knowing how I did it please leave a comment, but in short it's a simple Blender scene + some very basic Photoshop created planets in the background.

Here the menu bar background is added. It's just a shape layer with a solid color and a Gradient Overlay layer style to add some simple depth.

Here's another subtle addition: two lines 2px wide, with a Gradient Overlay layer style that's adding the high-light in the center. The lines consist of two colors: one that's a brighter shade of the main color of the menu bar background, and the other is almost black. The almost black line is topmost on the top line and at the bottom of the bottom line. These small lines add some nice dimensionality, and now you can see where the gradient from the top image fits in the big picture.

And now for the finishing touches: the type. The website name + slogan is in the font Andika Basic (can be downloaded for free from http://scripts.sil.org/andika ). The slogan has a simple Drop Shadow layer style. And the website name has got a slightly more complicated layer style. Easiest to see is the huge Outer Glow in Linear Dodge blend mode, but there's also a slight Drop Shadow and a 1px Stroke which together adds some dimensionality to the text. If you want to take a closer look at the later layer style feel free to download it: http://feneur.com/fdad/Alien_Jobs_Blue.asl

To install it go to Edit-->Preset Manager, then choose Styles from the drop-down list. After that it's just to click the Load button to the right and navigate to where you downloaded the file and select it + click ok and you have installed the custom layer style and can check it out and use it in your own projects.

Updated Experiment: Blue elements (Underwater scene)

Created in Photoshop CS4 Extended using a Wacom Intuos 3

Thanks to some comments on Facebook I decided to work a bit more on this image, and this is the result of that. I think it's much better now, and hopefully those who suggested I'd work more on it will agree.

Experiment 132: Stairs

Created in Artrage 3.0.5 using a Wacom Intuos 3

Created in Blender 2.49

I wanted a background image for my new blog: oneruleaday.com [Discontinued, the image can still be interesting though.] and thought an image of stairs would be fitting. I first created a simple model in Blender to help me decide on an angle and lighting, and then used the render as a guide for the painting I created in Artrage. The Artrage painting was done with its new watercolor simulation, which in my humble opinion is great (Artrage 3 is the first version that's got the watercolor simulation so I'm sure it'll improve even more, and I wouldn't say my image is the best when it comes to showcase how realistic it is, but I still find it really nice to be able to do all these things in a computer program. It doesn't dry in the same way real paint does either so it's easier that way as well ;-) One don't get all these edges all over the place that one does in real life if one isn't quick enough.)