Make Your Own Candy Cane

The Basic Candy Cane Canvas and Shape

1. As with any project, before you start you need to decide what your final output is going to be. For example, is it going to be for print or email?

If you want to make candy canes to decorate a something for print, i.e. a greeting card or mug, then create a new canvas following *Option A as a guideline.

If you are newish to photoshop or want to create a candy cane for an email image, follow *Option B below to create your canvas. (This is the one I'll be using in this tutorial so you will find it easier to follow along).

*Option A(For Print)
Create a new canvas with the size 8x10 inches at 300pixel/inch. See image below Ctrl + N

*Option B(Smaller File for email)

Create a new canvas with the size 500 x 500 pixels at 72pixel/inch. See image below Ctrl + N

2. Click on your foreground colour in your tool box.

The Colour Picker box will appear. Change the foreground colour to bright blue (I'm using #0000FF) and click OK.

Now click on your Paint Bucket Tool in your tool box.

With your paint bucket click on your canvas and fill blue. Your canvas should now be blue and your layer palette should look like the one below.

3. Now we are going to create the basic candy cane shape.

Go to your Layers palette and create a new layer( ). Rename this layer"cane".

Change your foreground color to a pale gray (#DBDBD7). Don't use white we are going to use white for the highlights later.

Now we are going to select the pen tool from the tool box. Making sure your pen tool settings along the top are same as mine (see image below)!

Follow the plan (picture) below. Each click with the pen tool is creating an Anchor Point. If you make a mistake, just right-click and select Delete Anchor Point, then do it again. The final anchor point (number 15) should be placed exactly on top of the first (number 1) anchor point, closing the path (you'll see a little circle next to your pen tool indicating that you are closing the path).

Tip: Check your history to make sure you have closed your path. Window>>History (you should see"Close Path"as the last action)

Now to fix up the shape and make it nice and rounded, we are going to use the Convert Point Tool. See image below.

With the Convert Point click and drag on each anchor point. Without letting go, move the mouse in the direction you created the path (use the image below as a guide line). The line that is created is called the Tangent Line. The tangent line controls the curvature of the curve. If you are unhappy with the result of a curve then click again on your anchor point to reset it and try again.

Once you are happy with the shape of your candy cane path, make sure you are working on your"cane"layer in your layer palette then right-click and select"Fill Path". You should now have perfect gray candy cane shape on your canvas.

Finally right-click on your canvas one more time and select"Delete path". The image below is what your canvas and layer palette should now look like.

Adding the Stripes

4. Change your foreground colour to a deep red (#940000).

Go to your layers palette and create a new layer( ). Rename this layer"red".

Create a clipping group. To do this hold down the ALT key and move the mouse between the two layers"cane"and"red", then click when the cursor turns into a"double bubble". See below.

The"red"layer will slide to the right with an arrow pointing to the"cane"layer below it. See image below.You have now created a Clipping Group. This means that the stripes we create will only exist on the cane...no need to worry about going over the edges.

Now make sure you are working on your new"red"layer. Get your Paint Brush Tool ( ) and start painting where you want to the thicker red stripes to appear. (I used a Hard Round 5 pixel brush).

Take your time. Use the eraser tool if you make a mistake.

The stripes will look better if they are a little"wobbly".

Try to create interesting shapes by tapering the red at the edges and have the red thickest in middle of the cane.

Make the final stripes on both the very ends of cane stop short. This will help give a more 3d effect.

5. Now create another new layer( ). Rename it"thin red". Create clipping group for this layer too. Your layer palette should now look like the image below.

Change your foreground colour to a shade of pink. I'm using #A94A4A

Change your brush to a smaller size. I'm using the Hard Round 3 pixel brush. This time draw each thin stripe with a quick movement. If you go slow the line is going to be a real shaky mess. If you don't like the line you've drawn,Ctrl + to undo.

Making the Candy Cane Look Great

6. First we'll add a shadow. Create a new layer( ). Rename it"shadow". Create clipping group for this layer too.

Change your foreground color to a medium gray. I'm using #747373

Change your paint brush to a larger, softer brush. I'm using Soft Round 21 pixels.

The animation left shows how I used the brush to create the shadow regions.

Because there is a clipping path, the shadow region will only appear on the candy cane.

Try to keep the brush about 50% on the candy cane and 50% off. See image below.

7. Next in your layer palette change to Mode to Multiply for your"shadow layer". (Just click on the arrow, see image below and select Multiply from the options). See image below. Your shadow region should look pretty good now.

8. Now to create the highlight regions. Create a new layer( ). Rename it"highlight 1". Create clipping group for this layer too.

Change your foreground colour to white. (#FFFFFF)

Change your paintbrush to a hard round brush. I'm using Hard Round 19 pixels. Now paint in the highlight regions, use the image below as a guideline. You can see mine is quite rough but it doesn't really matter as we will be applying a blur to this layer.

Apply a slight blur using gaussian blur. Filter>>Blur>>Gaussian Blur (I used a radius of 2 pixels)

Now change the mode for the"highlight1"layer to Overlay in your layer palette (see image below). Also adjust the opacity to what you think looks good.

9. Almost done!Create a new layer( ). Rename it"highlight 2". Create clipping group for this layer too.

Your foreground should still be set to white. Change your paintbrush to a smaller brush. I'm using Hard Round 13 pixels. Paint in some more highlights, use the image below as a guide.

Apply a slight Gaussian Blur. I used a setting of 3.6 pixels. Finally adjust the Opacity. See layer palette in the image below.

Click to enlarge

10. Finally create a drop shadow. Click on your"cane"layer in your layer palette (making it the active layer). Now click on the Layer Style button at the bottom of your layer palette (see image below) and choose"Drop Shadow..."

Don't just use the default settings, make a few custom changes to your drop shadow. The changes I would make..

1. Make sure it is set to Multiply
2. Adjust the colour of the shadow (I chose a dark blue)
3. Adjust the opacity
4. I adjusted the distance but you may also want to adjust the spread and size

Saving Your Candy Cane Clip Art

11. Save your work with a name that makes sense i.e. candycane-layers.psd

This file is good if you want to make anymore changes to your candy cane. You could change the colour of the stripes or add more highlight layers for more shine.

The other file I would create is...

Delete your background layer

Remove the drop shadow (just right-click on the cane layer and choose clear layer style)

Then Layer>>Merge Visible (don't use the flatten image option)

Finally Save As...candycane-flat.psd You now have your completed candy cane all on one layer ready to drag and drop on to various projects

Christmas Email Design

This quick and easy design is great if you want to send around a Christmas/Seasons Greeting. Or use it as a base to create your own masterpiece. Maybe add a photo of your family to it, to further personalize it.

1. Create a new psd (Ctrl + N). I'm making mine 500 x 500 pixels which is a good size for email (not too big). Make sure the resolution is set to 72 pixels/inch. Background colour is white. Click OK

File >> Save as... and rename this psd something like email-greeting.psd and save.

2. Open your candy cane psd (Ctrl + O) that you created from the tutorial. If you created the 2 files as I suggested, then open candycane-flat.psd. You now will have 2 psd's in your Photoshop window.

What we want to do is duplicate the "cane" layer that you have just created into your new psd. Using your move tool, in your layer palette click on the "cane" layer and drag it on to the new "email-greeting" psd canvas. See image below.

Click to enlarge

You should now have 2 layers in your email-greeting psd. Your layer palette should look like the image below.

Keep your new email psd open and close your candy cane psd as we no longer need it.

3. Use your move tool to position the candy cane to the right of the design.

4. Click on the Layer Style button at the bottom of your layer palette (see image below) and choose "Drop Shadow.

5. Go to your layers palette and create a new layer ( ). Rename this layer "blue". Drag in below the candy cane layer. Your layer palette should look like the image below.

Change your foreground colour to a light shade of blue. (I'm using #8CAADD)

Take your paint bucket tool and fill the layer.

Change to your eraser tool ( ) and select a dotty style brush, such as the "spatter" style. I'm using the Dry Brush Tip Light Flow. See image below.

6. Working around the outside of the blue, roughly erase the blue to reveal the white below. See image below left.

Apply a blur. Blur >> Gaussian Blur (I used a blur radius of 30 pixels).

Use the eraser again on the blue layer but this time stick closer to the edge. Try to drag the eraser in different angles to create an interesting scratchy look.

7. Create a new layer. Rename it "snowflakes".

Change your foreground colour to white (#FFFFFF)

Select your Custom Shape Tool. Make sure the setting at the top is set to Fill Pixels. See image below.

If you are using Photoshop 7 or a later version then there is several shapes to choose from. Earlier versions of Photoshop will have less custom shape options.

Hold down shift and click drag to create some different sized snowflakes. I think it looks great if they sort of disappear in to the white on the sides. See image below.

8. Select your type tool and type in your Christmas Greeting.

I used the font "Girls are Weird" which you can download from www.1001freefonts.com. I used colour #0612C2 and varied the size of the fonts (merry=48px xmas=60px everyone!=60px).

A good tip is to put each word on a separate layer so that you can design the layout better. Once you are happy with the layout, link the layers and then merge linked.

To create a nice looking Engraved Text Effect this is what you do...

1. Duplicate your text layer twice. (You should have 3 identical text layers on top of each other)
2. Change the top text layer white. To do this Image >> Adjustments >> Levels (Drag the black marker under Output Levels all the way to the right, to the white marker)
3. Change the mode of all 3 layers to Soft Light
4. Working on the top white text layer, select your move tool. Use your keyboard arrow buttons and hit left twice

9. Create a new layer and add "Love from.." etc. I used the font "A Yummy Apology" and added a warped text effect (You can find the button to warp your text by having the text tool selected then look up the top next to the font colour). I also added some kisses using the font "International Playboy". Both of these fonts are available on www.1001freefonts.com

9. All done! Now save your psd.

Next we need to create a jpg ready for email. So File >> Save for Web...

From the options select JPEG and then adjust the quality slider until it looks good (I used quality=67). Then hit Save

Now you can attach your Christmas Greeting to your all emails!

Personalized Greeting Card

1. To get started open a new psd. You can see my settings in the image below. I'm creating a 5"x7" card (which is one of the standard card sizes, another is 4"x8"). Also note that the colour mode is RGB and because we are going to create a high quality JPEG as the output, it is 8bit.

2. I filled the background with a nice shade of red (#B20000). Save your psd as "card.psd"

3. Open the photograph you want to use in Photoshop and copy the layer on to your new "card" psd. Don't worry if it seems large on the canvas. Then close the original.

4. Open your candy cane design and copy it over to your "card" psd and close then close the original.

5. Now using Transform (Ctrl + T) make sure you hold down shift (to keep the scale equal and avoid weird distortions), scale down your original image and candy cane. Note I also chose to rotate my candy cane a little. You should definitely be scaling down i.e. making your images smaller in proportion to your canvas...if you are scaling up your original image it is not big enough and is probably too poor of quality to continue (get a better sized image).

6. Duplicate your candy cane layer then flip horizontally Edit >> Transform >> Flip Horizontal

I placed my second cane on the other side of the photo. See image below.

7. Create your holiday message using the text tool. I used the font Harrington at 72px, colour white (#FFFFFF), It still a little small so I increased the font 150% width wise and 300% in height. To do this use Window >> Character (and adjust options in the window).

8. Add a stroke to your text. Layer >> Layer style >> Stroke

I used 6px, outside, colour pink (#D02222)

9. Add a stroke to your original photo layer. Layer >> Layer style >> Stroke

I used 10px, inside, colour white (#FFFFFF)

10. Add some snowflakes using your custom shapes.

A good idea is to create a new layer for each flake so that you can move them around individually and place in the exact spots you want.

11. Finally I created a new layer beneath the text layer. Painted in a white "scratchy" area using a Rough Round Bristle brush behind the text, applied Gaussian Blur and then changed the mode for this layer to Overlay.

Finally save your psd. Then choose Save As... select JPG as the format and save at a quality high setting.

Personalized Christmas Mug

How about a personalized mug? Such a great idea for a present or just instead of a card. Pick your favorite photo, add the greeting and a few decorative candy canes or snowflakes and you're away laughing.

Just follow the card steps above but make sure your canvas that you start with at the beginning is the right size to go on a mug. For example if you decide to go with www.shutterfly.com then you'll want to start with an 8"x10" inch canvas.

That's it!

I hope you found this Photoshop tutorial helpful.