Lessons

Lesson Info

Weaving Stroke Thickness

But now we're gonna return and do a very similar process but we're gonna do it for the dark areas. We need this thickness that's here to break through. And so what I'm gonna do is let's collapse down this little group we've been working on. We don't need to see these effects so we can close them off. And I wanna find the layer that has this dark stuff. So I'll just go in here and turn the eyeballs on and off on each layer. And right there is the layer with the dark stuff. I'm gonna duplicate that particular layer. I'll just type Command + J. That's Control + J in Windows to do so. And I'm gonna move this particular layer to the top of my layer stack. I'm gonna be careful not to put it in that folder though. I'm gonna put it above the folder like that. Then in here we have a drop shadow. That drop shadow is supposed to be below the entirety of the logo. I'm gonna throw that away by just dragging it to the trash 'cause we already have it down here below and that's where it belongs. Just ...

to simplify our view here, let's collapse these little things that show our layer effects so you can just click this little up pointing arrow here to collapse that down. And then we have this guy, we also wanna use a vector mask to control where this shows up. So we're gonna do something very similar to what we did on the layer below which is in order to have two vector masks, we need to put this inside of a group. And if you just click on the group icon, you get an empty group. If you hold Shift, it will put the active layer inside the group. Since I held Shift last time, this time I'm gonna do it manually. I won't hold Shift. Click and you see this is not indented, meaning it's not in there. Now I just drag it on top. Now it is. Let's name our group. Let's call this logo thickness above. And I wanna add a vector mask to control where this is gonna show up. So I'll go to my layer menu, I'm gonna choose vector mask. And in this case, instead of starting out with it completely visible, let's start off by hiding the entirety of this because it's covering up what's below and I don't want it to. So when I choose hide all, you see the dark portion of the logo there and suddenly it goes away. So we can see what was underneath it before and now we're going to work on that vector mask. I'll grab my pen tool and over here in the paths panel I could check and right here it says the vector mask is active but very often it decides to not work on it. And if so, we'll have to copy or cut and paste it. Let's find out. So now I'm gonna define where would the dark portion need to show up and that's wherever I made that highlight show up on the opposite edge of it should be that dark portion. So this would be one instance of where it should show up. So I'm gonna click right where these two shapes intersect. I need a curve so I'm gonna drag, I'm gonna get the left side of the curve to match the letter form about like that. Then I'm gonna go over here to where the other side is and I'm going to click and I'm gonna drag 'cause I need a curve and I'm gonna get the right side to match the letter form about like that. And then I'm just gonna loop down this way, but I don't want to just generically loop as if I was trying to hide this bottom portion 'cause that's not what I'm trying to do. I'm trying to tell it exactly where should that dark thing appear. So I'm gonna just click right below 'cause I think it should just probably extend out to about here. I need a curve though so I wish I would've gotten a handle to come out. If you ever want that to be the case, when you're in the pen tool, here's a little trick, you can either switch to this tool and then click on the point you added last and pull out those handles, or the shortcut for getting to that temporarily if I hadn't clicked away here, is to move over to the point and hold down the Option key, Alt in Windows. Then you can drag out a handle. So I'm gonna do that 'cause I need a curve here and I'm gonna go right here to where that shadowy thickness would've joined. Click. I need it to be a curve so I pull out a handle and then I'll click where I started. Now remember that it made the vector mask suddenly no longer be active. And so we're not working on the vector mask, that's okay. Just go to the Edit menu, choose Cut, then click on the vector mask either here on the paths panel or here in the layers panel. It's not letting me make it active, meaning I don't see the little corners. So I'll do it over here in the channels panel. I'll click on it there. Now those corners are highlighted. Don't ask me why it wouldn't let me. Sometimes Photoshop is finicky and I'll come over here and choose paste. Then we have to tell it what should the paths that we draw on that vector mask do. And what I want them to do is last time we had it subtract from what was in a layer and it's just assuming we want to use the same settings. Instead I want it to have it show up. So I'm gonna choose this option and I only have to set that once, from now on, anything I add to that is gonna cause areas to show up. Now let's see what we've done. I'll type Command + H, there we've gotten that little dark area to show up and I made it show up so it gets to a very thin point because that's what it would do if you just think about this overall shape. Now I'm a little bit off in my positioning. I might zoom up a little bit and make it more precise but I'm gonna leave it alone just for time's sake. Let's continue on. I'm gonna type Command + H to let it so we can see the path once again. And let's go to the next letter. In this letter, think about where did we end up forcing the highlight to appear? I think it was right here. So on the opposite side we gotta make sure the thickness appears and it already does so we don't have to do anything there. Where's the next spot where we forced the highlight to show up? I think it was here. If you're uncertain, you can go to this folder down here, this group and just turn it off and back on again to see where did you force the highlight to show up? And wherever you force the highlight to show up on the opposite side of that area, you should have the thickness showing up. So let's get it to show up here. Now as long as we have that path visible, we should be adding to our vector mask. I'm gonna click right here where the two letters would or the two portions of the letter would join right there. I need kind of a straight line so I don't need to drag. And I'll click right there. Then I'm gonna go out here to where I see the thickness joining. You see this little kind of intersection, I'm gonna click right there and then click right where those two things intersect again and then click where I started and to see my end result I'll type Command + H and if I need to fine tune anything, in this case, I think I can see, I'll zoom up a little bit, this little bitty notch, that's just 'cause I didn't go high enough. And I also see this feels indented a little bit. So I'll type Command + H, get back, and I can go to the white arrow tool. If all the points are active, you only got want one, just click away and back to where the line would be. Then you can come over here and grab individual points. I can grab two. If I hold Shift and click on the other, I'm gonna use the left arrow key, Command + H to hide, and now I think that lines up better. I need to get rid of this tiny little mess up. So I'll type Command + H, bring it back, and I'm just gonna move this up higher. Up arrow key and right arrow key to get it right on the edge. Command + H, there, that looks better. So now I'm gonna move on to the next spot. And if you're not sure where that spot is, just go to the lower layer that's here and we have this little folder that's below known as a group. Just turn it off and say where is the next spot where we force the highlight to show up? And I see right here we force it to show up and that means that thickness area needs to show up back here. I can't see my path so I type Command + H so I can see it. And right there we need to add something. So let's grab our pen tool and I'm gonna click right here. It needs to be a curve. So I'll drag out a line and I'll click right here, drag to get a curve. Then I'm going to go to where the I'm looking at the thickness, not the logo, not the highlight and lighter part, but I'm looking at where that little notch is. I'm gonna click right there. I need a curve so I can pull out a handle like this. I can tell that point looks to be about one pixel too far to the right. So I can just see my arrow keys, and arrow it to the left and I'm gonna come to right here. And I didn't mean to click and let go. I wanted to get handles come out. So I just choose Undo and that's as if I never clicked and I'll come right back in here, I'll click and I'll drag to get my little handle. So I get a nice little curve in there. Then I'm just going to loop back over to where I started and that defines where that dark area should appear. So I'll type Command + H to see what it looks like and I think it looks pretty good. So now it looks as if that is above. So then I come over here and this is where I also added a highlight. So the dark portion should show up over here. I'll type Command + H just so I can see my path and let's tackle that one. I click right where these two letter forms, letter shapes connect. I need a curve so I drag, I click here and since I need a curve, I drag just not very far. I come over here to wear that same little notch is in the thickness, click. I need a curve so I drag, I come up here, I need a curve so I drag, and then I click back where I started. I check my results with Command + H and I think I'm off the littlest bit right there 'cause I see the equivalent to a notch. So I type Command + H and I can get that hollow arrow tool. Now there's a shortcut for the hollow arrow tool whenever you're in the pen tool if you happen to want to use it. Then that is just hold on the Command key, Control in Windows. And for however long you have it held down, you get the hollow arrow tool. I'll click and then click back so I don't have my points. And just get that point arrow to the left, Command + H, that looks better. So now we're on top. Here's supposed to look like it's underneath. We added this highlight up here. That means we need the thickness to show up down there. Command + H, remember you can click on the clickable table of contents to move on to the next stage if you feel comfortable doing what I'm doing. I'm gonna click right here just so I know how far down it is. That's why I used where that little notch is. And click right over here about there back where I started, Command + H to check my work. And that part looks just the littlest bit too low right there. So I use my Command key to get my arrow key in there and arrow it up. That looks right. All right, so we got that. Now this is looking like it's going underneath because of this highlight, on the opposite side we already have that thickness there, so we're good there. And here we could make that go underneath but we didn't end up adding that highlight so I'm not going to. Right there we have the highlight. So we need the thickness on the opposite side. Command + H to get our paths to show up. I'm still in my pen tool so I click right there, drag 'cause I need a curve right there. Drag 'cause I need a curve. Go to where the thickness is, where that same junction would be right where the thickness joins. I need a curve there so I should have dragged like that, click where I started and Command + H. All right. So let's see if there's any area where I might need further work. I could go down to the layer where the folder is below and say just confirm anywhere where that highlight is disappearing and showing up. Look on the opposite side to see if you have the thickness. And I believe I do. Now if you wanted to get crazier, you could make for a much more complicated document by trying to make any area that is going above another, make that area cast a shadow onto what's underneath. That's beyond the scope of this particular lesson though 'cause I think we've gone long enough already.