Simple Photoshop tricks: Soft Light
If you’re anything like me (a developer-cum-codemonkey working as a designer), you probably feel pretty dumb when it comes to working up design comps, especially when ‘proper’ graphic designers make it seem so effortless. You might have a pretty good handle on the theory behind layout, typography, colour selection and all that jazz, but when it comes to converting that knowledge into a great design… the final product sometimes seems to be so much less than the sum of its parts.
What I thought I’d do here is share some of the personal little tricks I use to make designs – and design elements – more interesting. There are plenty of ‘cool effect’ tutorials around, but I’ve not seen many that suggest little touches to help give your design that extra boost.
Note that I’m not claiming any great design skill by writing this – quite the opposite! – but hopefully someone may find these tricks handy.
Blend Modes
I don’t really understand what most of Photoshop’s Blend Modes do, but I’ve found them a useful way of adding depth and appeal to an element. One of my favourite modes for achieving this is Soft Light.
Here’s a typical block to be used in a layout – pretty boring at the moment, despite the Web 2.0 green, drop-shadow and gradient fill. To make it a bit more interesting, I’m going to create a new Layer, set its Blend Mode to ‘Soft Light’ and then draw a white circle over the top of my block. I can then duplicate that layer and let the soft light effects build up by stacking them on top of each other.
By arranging these soft-light layers you can create some simple visual interest out of an otherwise bland part of your page.
Here I’ve just used two circles and positioned them over the top-right corner of the block; adding a small bullet using the same colours created by the soft-light circles gives me a nice colour palette for that block.
Summary
It’s not much in the general scheme of PS tutorials I know, but I often find it a useful way of breaking out of ‘designers block’ – let me know if you found it useful.
Filed under: Photoshop, Design.
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Comments
- Matthew Pennell
- 742 days ago
- I’m occasionally doodling redesigns for this site as well – moreso following @media.
- #2
- Oliver Beattie
- 739 days ago
- What a gorgeous website!! This design is absolutely stunning.
- #3
- Erwin Heiser
- 732 days ago
- For a self-confessed non-designer this is a pretty great looking site…don’t be too hard on yourself :)
- #4
I’m grafting away slowly on a redesign of the Ol’ Crate. I’m going fully liquid and that alway seems to stall me somehow…
I get stuck thinking about what would be easy to liquify rather than what looks good.
This is giving my brain a helphful prod.