Create a travel Ad

Here, I've just dragged in some more images which are going to be a part of the final design. I am choosing vibrant colors to balance out the otherwise, global midnight blue color theme.

Balance is important when doing something like this. You want the design to work together. As bright and colorful these 3 layers will have their role. Scale them all down to the same size (Edit: Transform: Scale). You can do this by lowering the opacity of a layer and placing it on top of the other one and scaling down until the bars are equal.

Note how you can still see the transform handles even though the leaves layer is below the palms layers (how handy dandy).

You can easily duplicate a layer effect by dragging it to another layer (at the bottom line point in the layers palette as shown). Create a drop shadow on one layer and then drag it down to the other two layers.

Add some text. I am adding a corporate sounding name because you're fired, i mean...we want to balance the design and bring it back to commercial society in this case without being too artsy fartsy (in this case once again).

Note how the intense color balances out with the midnight blue hue of the rest of the document.

Now you can see that we've created a 2 page corporate magazine spread. Let's take that theme a little bit further and enhance an identity of a fictional company. This is going to be for a faux-travel company. So choose some good looking 'travel' photos from your collection (stock photos are great). If you're short on ideas, look at the pop up ads you keep getting. Palm trees, sunsets, good stuff.. Transform: Scale them down to the same size and put then create a new layer set and drag them all into the folder in the layers palette. Now they are organized and you can do some more transformations to all of them simultaneously (if they are the same size when you drag them in, you could do the folder transform right away and then move them into place but sometimes they are just too darn big anyways).

 

Remember you can right click when on the move tool and choose layers this way also with the top layer showing up first.

Do the same drop shadow technique to apply it to each of the layers. Because the layers are independent, they need to each have their own 'effect' going on, but in the folder you can change opacity and transform, move together as if linked, etc..

Now place each layer in the order as shown. Once again be aware of the layer order. I've chosen the order of the layers because they balance well; notice the yellow in the front and back images (which would work reversed too) but I want to keep the golf dude in the middle to balance nature with man and back to nature. We want a serene, escapist mood going on here. The drop shadows add a nice professional touch.  If you want more of real world commercial design then check out my new Madison Avenue Ad Design Secrets.

Now you can get really crazy and Edit: Free Transform: Skew the layer set itself.  The transformation will apply to all of the layers in the set as you can see (press Enter to apply changes).  Pretty simple but very handy dandy. Now we're getting somewhere!

You can still work on a layer independently and move them around, just select it within the layers palette.

Bring in another layer, scale it down and then skew it. Remember you can just Ctrl/Cmd T and hold down the Ctrl/Cmd key to free distort from any of the handles. Note that this layer, even if it was in the same layer set, does not have the same kind of skew, we are skewing in the opposite direction and working on this layer independently. This is important to understand that you can still go in and work on each layer independently. But lets get this out there on its own in the palette and skew it the other way.

 

Go ahead and add some more flava to one of the layers with a gradient outer glow. You can choose any color from the default yellow box or you can choose a gradient to have as an outer glow. After you are satisfied with the settings when previewing it, press ok and then drag the layer effect down to the other layers; one at a time.

You want a font that is clearly legible for most corporate design (duh, but true). Save your goofy fonts for another design, shame on you (j/k). But always keep in mind the vision of your design when working with typography you want to scroll through your font collection to find something that 'works' with your design that will more effectively help convey the meaning and intentions..summed up in one word: 'strategery'.  Now add some 'flighty' text.

Here's another little trick effect. Just duplicate the layer a couple of times, move each layer at an angle off of the original and lower the opacity. Then put them in a layer set for organization.

Not bad for a matinee.  If you want to get all the Photoshop training (Basic & advanced with design) then check out the Discover Photoshop: Total Package.  It's got 20 hours of 500+ video tutorials and tons of free cool Photoshop design bonuses.