[TUT] - Working With Layer Styles

[effectica]

Working With Layer Styles

Author: effectica

>> WORKING WITH STYLES IN PHOTOSHOP <<

This tutorial will teach you how to:

- load layer styles
- manage your layer styles
- create your own layer styles
- save your layer styles


[Break= Part 1]


LOAD LAYER STYLES
Layer styles are loaded through the color/swatches/styles panel.




If you don't have this panel visible already, then from the top menu
Click Window and select styles as shown in the image below




Once you have the styles panel visible, just click on the litle arrow icon
as showed in the image, and select Load Styles



Photoshop comes with its own set of default styles:



So now you can:
- Load styles from the default location (usually C:\Program Files\Adobe\Adobe Photoshop CS2\Presets\Styles)
or
- Load styles from a location where you stored or downloaded your styles.

TIP: Avoid loading too many styles all at once. Photoshop loads your styles into the memory of your system.
This means that if you have too many styles, your photoshop will take more time to load and once it is loaded your system will be slower too

[Break= Part 2]

MANAGE YOUR LAYER STYLES

It can often happen that once you load new styles into your Photoshop, you realise that some of them looks like a clown made them.
If you don't like clowns, you can easily get rid of these styles with the "Preset Manager". This handy feature, allows you to manage all your brushes, swatches, gradients,
styles, patterns, contours, custom shapes and tools.
You can access it by going to the top menu and clicking edit --> preset Manager as shown in the image below




From the window that opens, select styles from the drop down menu as shown in the image




Now this is the best part.
When you load new styles into Photoshop, they are either loaded replacing the ones you already have, or
they are appended to your current ones. At the end of the day you can end up with a pretty messy styles panel.

From the preset manger, not only you can delete, load and save your styles, but you can also order them as you like.
So for example you can put your metallic styles all one next to another on top, right next to them your glass styles and so on.
This makes it so much easier to work with styles, because they can be much more easily spotted if they are ordered by type.

TIP:There are 2 ways of selecting multiple styles that you want to move, delete or save. Use the SHIFT key or CTRL key on your keyboard

You can select styles by pressing the SHIFT key on your keyboard , and while keeping the SHIFT key pressed select another style down the list.
This will select all of the styles in between the first one you selected to the second one u selected as shown in the image



OR

You can select them while keeping your CTRL key on the keyboard rpessed. This will allow you to select multiple styles in any order as shown in the image



Once you selected the styles you are interested in, simply use the buttons on the preset manager window to delete or save them.
In case you want to simply order your style list, then all you need to do is click drag them to where you like.

[Break= Part 3]

CREATE AND SAVE YOUR LAYER STYLES

Now lets say I have created a cool layer style and I want to keep it so I can use it on other designs I will do in the future.
Luckily Photoshop has the ability to save the style you create, and it is an extremely easy thing to do too.
So to make this a complete example I will create a simple layer style that will draw an outline on a shape or text.

Lets bring up the blending options by double clicking on the text layer, as the image below shows





On the blending options, select stroke and set:

- color = black
- Size = 1
- Position = Outside



You will get something like this




Now all left to do is to save the style.
So always on the blennding options window, look for the button New Style and click on it



That is it. You have just saved your style and if you look, you will see it at the bottom of the list, in your styles panel.

TIP: If you want to make a backup on your hard disk of 1, a few or all of your styles, all you need to do is to go into the preset manager as explainmed previously, then select the style/s you want to save and just hit the save button. Done!

[MiddleMan]

Very nice Tutorial Fede

[kay8]

that's cool!

[MortimerJazz]

Great stuff fede.

[Terminator]

superb thanks my styles were all over the place now there all nice and neat and i deleted a lot of useless styles as well thanks.

[Corrosive]

awesome tut.

[Xerver]

Good Tutorial
a question as it is the name of font that uses