Once again, you can see the layer mask icon next to the layer icon with the black areas showing the masked or invisible areas and white showing the remaining selection. Learn to master the gradient tool for layer masking...it's one of the most powerful things you could ever learn in Photoshop. Wax on/Wax off...patience photo-san.
Now you could add an adjustment layer. To create a custom adjustment layer, do as I teach and Ctrl click on the layer to select it with the marching ants. Now you can bring up a Curves (in this case) adjustment layer that will only apply to this layer because you have created a selection that will be a perfect match and because there are no other layers in between, will apply only to this layer.
Instantly I would say that Curves would be the tool of choice in this instance because it gives you plenty of flexibility for mapping different light parameters across the layer. Curves is used a lot in many movie posters. Experiment around with creating different control points and shaping them until you find something you like. When you find something you like, you just know that 'it works'; this is all part of being an effective Photoshop designer. This is one option that could work.
Ok, this ones a little too freaky. Maybe a 'Predator Meets Teenagers Next Summer' poster.
As you can see there are different possibilities that could all work well. You could create layer comps in Photoshop CS to show your client (or yourself) the many different options. Or you could create different custom adjustments layers and turn them on and off with the seeing eyeballs.
Please preview something like this in full screen mode (FF TAB). Black looks extremely nice and elegant. Fading in front black always works. Great typography is a must in teaser posters because there is very little else. You want to create intrigue. Not: too: shabby. Grab this .psd from the iPSDirectory or when you sign up for the PSDer ezine.
Create an industry standard COMING SOON text layer in a smaller font size. With the move tool place it towards the bottom of the document (eyeball where you think it should go). You can then use the centering method I teach in the other tutorials.
Rasterize the duplicate layer and run Ctrl F on it (the filter) and then change the blending mode to difference.
Now grab large bristly brush as shown from your brushes palette (only available when B is your tool. Go to View to bring up the Brushes palette if it isn't yet visible.
Make one blob of a stroke on a brand new layer.
Here I have selected it so you can see it better. Dark dark brown was our foreground color. These are the settings I've used.
Now...this big brush stroke is on it's own layer..hey it kinda looks like a tree shadow..let's see what else we can do. Go to give the rundown on the blending modes and find something that suits your palate (pun almost intended).
There are two options that work well here. I'm using color burn because it's a nice hard shadow effect. If I start lowering the opacity it starts washing out too much. Plus it adds more intrigue to keep everything so sharp and hardcore.
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The other option was linear light and I ended up sticking with that one. To tell you the truth I didn't have this tutorial planned at all (from the image to the text effect to the shadow) and it just sort of fell into place as I went along. You want to get to that level as a designer where you understand now only Photoshop but all of the possibilities you can start combining when you have a large source image collection and some good training experience like from Photoshopdesigner and PhotoshopDesign.NET.
Get to the level where you don't have the blank document syndrome but rather you are just brimming with ideas that you want to try and produce. Get your flow started here.
