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Easy boxes with endless possibilities!
By Ps graphiX | august 31, 2007
Well… not actually endless possibilities, but there are many. With these nice little boxes you can make cool logos and graphic art. Of course this is just a guide to what you can do, but when you first learn it, you can put on some personal touch and make it even better! But firt I’m going to show you an easy way to draw one box, and after that, I’ll show you a really easy way to duplicate, change colors and give you some ideas. And by the way, you should have some photoshop skill to do this , but I guess that’s not a problem for you 
Firs, start opening a new project in Photoshop. I made it 600*500 just to have some space to play with. I also filled it with a light gradient just for the eyes.
Now, use the «Rectangular marquee tool» to make a selection and, in a new layer, fill it with a not to bright version of your favorite color. I chose red just because I think it will do good for our first box. Hit «Ctrl+T» on your keyboard and follow my little picture step:
And this next step is tricky. You must have the move tool selected. Duplicate the layer you have. And while having the one of them who are behid the other selected, hold Alt (or Alt Gr if you prefer it) and just hit the up and right arrow. One at a time and just repeat this until you have an almost box looking thing like this:
Now I guess you have a lot of layers! Just merge everyone of them except from the top layer and your layers palette should be like this:
You can see that i now have merged my 105 layers and still have my top layer and while having that layer selected, press «Ctrl+U» and lower the lightness a bit.
And this step is the most important: step away from your computer, take five push-ups and one or two giant jumps before you run to the other end of your house and back. Doesn’t that just feel good? 
Well… back to the tutorial. Chose the «Polygonal selection tool» an make a selection similar to mine:
Select a gradient like the one shown below. Then drag into the selection so that it looks like the box in my below picture (click if you want to enlarge):
Now do the same action on the top of the box and you have a more «box» looking thing. And FINALLY we are heading to the last step of making our box.
On the top layer that is darker than the others, we are going to add some glossy thing. Select the «Elliptical marquee tool» and make a selection like mine:
In a new layer, fill the selection with white.
Then Ctrl+Click the icon of the darker icon of the box. This will make you a selection of it and now you need to click «Shift+Ctrl+I» to inverse the selection. Assuming that you now still have the darker layer selected, hit Backspace on your keyboard an VOILA! You just have to set the gloss layer’s blending mode to Soft light and the opacity to about 15%.
This is what I have now (click to enlarge):
Some possibilities with the box
Ok, you have a nice little box and want to make some cool graphic art out of it. The easiest way to begin is to get a box in only one layer. You can do this by merging all your layers, or if you still want to have the box in many layers, duplicate and merge these layers.
When your box layer is selected and «Move tool» is also selected, simply hit Alt on your keyboard and drag it where you want it and it automatically makes a new layer. You can repeat this until you have shapes with the boxes, make logos and much more!
To change the color of a box, hit «Ctrl+U» (takes you to hue/saturation) and change the Hue.
Just use your skill, anyway how much you have of it and do things you have learned before. My reflection tutoial might help you a bit and… use your creativity and have FUN!!
Here are some examples for inspiration (click to enlarge):
And hey! I would be glad for comments and your outcome for this tutorial!
Topics: Photoshop Tutorials | 8 Comments »