From the course: Deke's Techniques (2018-2021)

762 Free-transforming shape layers

From the course: Deke's Techniques (2018-2021)

762 Free-transforming shape layers

- [Instructor] In this movie we're going to be free transforming some shape layers in order to create this green lawn, this white door, which includes some four point distortion, as well as this black edge. Alright, so for starters here, I'm going to click on the sky layer to make it active. And I'm going to jump a copy of it, by pressing control + J, or command + J on the Mac. And then I'll double click on a shape layer's thumbnail in order to bring up the Color Picker dialogue box. I'll change the hue value to 120 degrees. I'll take the saturation down to 90, and I'll take the brightness value down to 80%. And then, I'll click OK. And I'll rename this layer lawn. Now I want to make the shape half as tall as it currently is, and so I'll go up to the Window menu, and choose the Properties command in order to bring up the Properties panel. And notice this height value right there, I'm going to click after it and enter /2. Now this assumes that you're using the most recent version of Photoshop CC, by which I mean as things stand now, Photoshop CC 2019, which supports basic arithmetic. And notice, if I press the tab key Photoshop goes ahead and does the math, and changes the height value to 850 pixels. If you're using an older version of Photoshop, then you can just change that height value to 850 manually. Alright, now switch to the Move Tool, which is located up here at the top of the tool box, and you can get to it, by the way, by pressing the V key. And I'll drag this layer, and notice that the Properties panel has gone ahead and scaled it with respect to its top left corner, so I'll go ahead and drag it down until it snaps into alignment with the bottom of the blue rectangle. And notice that heads up display right there, you want the second value to be 850 pixels, that should be pretty easy. But you also want the first value to be zero pixels, so that you're moving the shape straight down. Alright, next we're going to create that black inside edge of the door. And I'm going to once again base it on the sky layer down here. So I'm going to make a copy of this layer by pressing the alt key, or the option key on the Mac, and dragging it to above the lawn layer. Notice that I'm seeing a double arrow cursor, and that's because I have the alt or option key down, which means as soon as I drop that shape into place, I will create a copy of it. And I'm going to go ahead and rename this layer edge. And notice that my foreground color's black. You can make that happen in your own version of Photoshop by tapping the d key for the default colors, and then you can fill the shape with black by pressing alt + backspace, that's going to option + delete on a Mac. Alright, now we want to set a couple of additional vertical guides. So press control + R, or command + R on a Mac to bring up the rulers, and then go ahead and drag a guide out from the vertical ruler on the left hand side of the screen. And you want it to land at exactly 600 pixels. Notice that heads up display right there, right now it says 580 pixels, I want it to be 600. And you can make sure that happens by pressing and holding the shift key, so that you're snapping into alignment with the ruler ticks on the horizontal ruler up at the top of the screen. So anyway, we want to put a guide at 600 pixels, so right there. And now, we want to put another one on the inside edge of the left side of the G, and we want it to land at exactly 1520 pixels right there. And again, if you press the shift key, that's going to make things easier. Alright now, I want to make this edge layer thinner, so it fits inside this narrow space right here. And so, I'll go ahead, and click and hold on the black arrow tool, the one that Photoshop calls the Path Selection Tool, and I'll go ahead and select the white arrow tool, the one Photoshop calls the tool below that. Alright, so I'll go and grab that guy, and then I'll click on this anchor point right there, and I'll shift click on this one, and I'll drag the two anchor points over while pressing the shift key until they snap into alignment with that vertical guide, which happens right there. And if you want to check to make sure it landed at the right location, you can press and hold the Z key, in order to get the Zoom Tool on the fly, and then drag like so. And then if you release your mouse button before you release the Z key, you'll spring back to the white arrow tool. And in my case, everything looks hunky-dory, so, I'll just go ahead and press control + zero, or command + zero in the Mac to zoom back out. And I'm going to make a copy of this layer, by pressing control + J, or command + J on the Mac. And that does not appear to have worked. Sure enough, that is an empty layer right there. So I'll just go ahead and undo that modification, it'll click off the shape to deselect it, and I'll press control + J, or command + J again, and this time Photoshop goes ahead and jumps the copy of the entire layer. At which point, I'll rename it door, and I'll fill it with a background color by pressing control + backspace, that's going to be command + delete on the Mac. And then, I'll click on this anchor point, and shift click on this one, and I'll go ahead and drag these guys while pressing the shift key over here until they snap into alignment with that last vertical guide I made. So notice, I dragged the left hand points all the way over here to the right. And now I need to swing the door open, so it looks like this. And I'm going to perform this feat using four point distortion, which is a function of the free transform command. And so I'll go ahead and switch back to my artwork in progress. I'm going to get rid of the rulers, just so I have a little more room to work here. And then I'll go up to the Edit menu, and choose Free Transform Points, or you can just press control + T, or command + T on the Mac. And now, as opposed to dragging a corner handle as you see me doing right here, which is not what I want, I'll go ahead and undo that change. I'm going to control, or command + drag that corner handle like so. And when you drag a corner handle while pressing the control key, or the command key in the Mac, you perform a four point distortion. If you add the shift key as you drag, then you'll constrain your four point distortion so that it's either a vertical or a horizontal slant, and then if you add the alt key, or the option key on the Mac, then you'll get this weird effect here, which is not what I want. I'll show you what I really want in just a moment, but first I'm going to press the escape key in order to get out of there. The problem is that I have just a couple of anchor points selected, so I'll just click off the points to deselect them, and I'll go ahead and switch back to a neutral tool, such as the Rectangular Marquee, which you can get by pressing the M key. And then I'm going to try that again. I'll go up to the Edit menu, and choose Free Transform this time, not Free Transform Paths or Points or whatever that was. Still has a keyboard shortcut of control + T, and then I'll just press all of the modifier keys, that's control, shift and alt. That's going to be command, shift and option on the Mac. This is what I'm looking for. I want to perform a perspective distortion as we're seeing right here. And notice in heads up display, that I can see that I'm distorting the shape by 20 degrees. But, I'm getting a more precise value up here in the Options bar. Notice this V value now says 20.05 degrees. If you want to get a very specific result, then go ahead and zoom in, mash those keys again, so control + shift + alt on the PC, command + shift + option on the Mac, drag this point down so that you have some other value, and then with those keys still down, so keep control, shift, and alt down, that's going to be command, shift, and option down on the Mac, and then just keep an eye on the Options bar and try to get that guy, that V value, to 20.00 degrees in order to get the most precise result possible. Is it all that important that you get exactly that value? No, it's not, but if you do want to get that value, that's how you go about doing it. Alright, so having swung open that door using four point distortion, I'll press the enter key here in the PC, or the return key on the Mac to apply that change. Alright, and now if you want to hide your vertical guides, all you have to do is press control + ; here on the PC, or command + ; on the Mac. And that is how you freely transform a bunch of vector-based shape layers in order to create an entirely vector-based logo here inside Photoshop.

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