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I have already prepared a background for you, so begin by copying it over to Photoshop.

So let’s begin by creating the hard cover of the book.  Grab your Rectangular Marquee Tool and create a rectangle approximately the size shown below.  Now select your Dodge Tool and set the radius over to 150; lightly dodge the tip of the cover.

We have our foundation now.  Let’s mold some detail into our cover.  Start applying the following layer styles over the cover:

And now the shadows:

Great.  Now let’s begin with our pages.  The idea is to create almost the same dimension rectangle except with an inch cropped off from the right.  So following the example below, create a white rectangle:

The base is there, so its time to add some detail.  Go to your layer styles and apply the following:

Now the gradient overlay:

Alright.  Now we have to resize it little by little and center vertically to the original page.  Make sure that the duplicate layers of the white page go underneath the original.  That way, the shadow creates depth and volume.

And continue to do that over a few times.

Okay.  So we are practically done here except now we have to actually add some detail to the white page since it looks really dull at the moment.  Go back to your Rectangular Marquee tool and create a graphical page inside the white page.  Follow my example:

Time to add a finish and some detail to our page by the uses of a Doge & Burn Tool.  Begin by taking out your Doge Tool and setting the diameter to at least 250px and lightly dodging the tip of the brown page.

Put on the first layer of shadows as the foundation.  I used a Burn tip the size of 200 pixels

Finish it up with a second layer of shadows, except this time focus on adding more shadows to the right hand side.  In this, I used a burn tip the size of 85px.

Great.  Now you are pretty much done.  All you have to do is put all the layers into a set, duplicate it, and then Flip it Horizontally by going to Edit – Transform – Flip Horizontal.  Make sure you have the set highlighted so that you won’t have to go through every layer.

But wait, you will probably notice now that your right-hand side has a different gradient pattern on the white page than your left-hand side of the book.  No worries.  Go to the Layer Style Properties of your duplicated first white page and make sure that there is a check by Reverse:

Great, now for our final touch.  Take out the Burn Tool again and on the right-hand side layer of the brown page, add a layer of shadow.

And there you have it, a quick and easy way to design an open book that can probably be used for anything possible–whether it be a place holder for your poems or photographs this tutorial can serve your needs in a series of easy steps!

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I have prepared a background for you; however, if you wish to make your own, please open a 500×500 Document.

Our first step is to create the foundation of the strip, which is the first layer before it bends to 3D. Following my outline and using the preferences listed below for the Pen Tool, create your own outline:

Looking good.  Now that we have our foundation, let’s add some color to it in order to create variation and spacing of colors.  Using the same Pen Tool settings, follow the guide below to create a second color inside our main strip:

Repeat the same step over twice again with the following colors (HINT: You can just duplicate and slide the layer over):

Alrighty, now we are beginning to create the depth in our strip.  We will begin by creating the corner tip at the right-hand side of the main strip.  Following the guidelines below and using the same pen tool settings, create the foundation for our corner:

Just like we did for the main strip, we need to add color to our foundation.  We have to make sure that our colors come in order, so first the beige then the light green:

Okay, now let’s do the light shade of the green using the same simple technique:

I don’t know if you guys noticed, but the idea was to pick a color a shade darker so that we can create depth.  As you can see, we managed to do that just right.  In order to save the work with the pen tool and time, using the original layer of the strip, we will duplicate it, move it up to the tip of the corner, and cut off the leftovers.  Not to get you confused, I added a preview of what should have been done before the clipping occured:

Using the same method, let’s duplicate our colored strips from the main base over to the sub-base of the strip.  In other words, here is what you should have:

Now that we have set up our colors and aligned our strip, we already can see the 3D Effect; however, let’s add some glare to it.  Take the base and change the color to white, and then Rasterize it (Make sure its a duplicate).  Now using your Eraser Tool with a diameter set to 100px, erase everything off besides the top, so it should look like a fade.  When you’re done, just set it to overlay.

You’re pretty much done.  After playing around a little, I came up with this result:

This is a quite simple tutorial; however, it gives a nice introduction to the way that you can create simple, but effective, 3D objects that can make your layout just POP.  The inspiration came from a layout that I found on Monster Templates.  Take a look below:

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Start out by creating a background.  You can just save mine, and open it in your Photoshop.  That way, you will save time.

Now that we have our background, let’s create the shape for the coupon.  Select your Custom Shape Tool, and pick out the postal-stamp-looking shape.  If you look at the image to the left, you will find it highlighted.  Once you have selected the Shape, draw it out to be approximately the size of mine.

Let’s add some detail to our Shape now.  Go to Layer – Layer Style, and apply the following settings. The color used in the gradient is #ffe96d and the color for the stroke is #ffdf4c.

Since our Coupon base is complete, let’s add the ribbon on top for the category/location of the promotion.  Once again, go to your Custom Shape Tool, and select the Ribbon which can be seen in the image centered under the ribbon.  Oh, and set the background to Default Black.

It’s detail time again.  Let’s start with what I call Shine, but can also be taken for as 3D detailing. Duplicate the Ribbon Shape, and set the background to #393939.  This might sound a little confusing, but if you follow carefully, you will achieve outstanding results.  Grab your Dodge Tool, set the size to 25, Range to Mid tones, and Exposure to 50%.  Once you have the settings applied, stroke the left-hand side of the ribbon all the way at the end once, and do the same for the right-hand side.   Now, move your attention to the center of the Ribbon, basically imagining as if the tips were never there.  Apply the Dodge Tool both to the left-hand side and the right-hand side.

Once you have done that, take out the Burn Tool, and change the Exposure to 100%.  Apply the Burn Tool to the left-hand side and the right-hand side of the tips, and do the same for the center of the ribbon, left and right, just as we have done with the Dodge Tool.

And for the last step, set the Opacity of the layer to 50%.

Our Ribbon is almost complete.  We just need to add a few touch-ups to make it more 3Dish.  Select the Original Shape, not your newly-created overlay, and apply the following settings in Layer – Layer Style.

Results

Now, for our final step.  Let’s add our ingredients to the coupon.  Apply some dummy text all around the place, and you should be done.  After playing around a little, I got the following results:

I hope that you found this tutorial useful, and maybe even a little fun to do.

Now that you have done that, let’s proceed to adding details to our background.  Grab your Rectangular Marquee Tool, and put it maybe 50 pixels away from the top, and draw a nice dark rectangle (#3409005).  Following that, grab your Eraser Tool and smoothly erase the bottom of the newly-created rectangular.  This should leave you with a nice shadow effect.

Grab your Pencil Tool, and set the Size to 1 PX and color to #FFFFFF.  Make a nice line over the Shadow, directly on top.  After that, go to your Layer Settings, and set the Blending Options to Overlay.  Take a look below for the Blending Option Settings:

Now, it’s time to create the Ribbon, which is our main objective in this tutorial.  Grab your pen tool, and create a ribbon-like shape.  If you have problems creating one on your own, you can trace mine. Once you have created the shape, set the background color to #e84200.

We have the Ribbon made, but as you can see, its quite plain, so we need to detail it.  I have organized a list of Layer Styles below for you, so what you have to do is to go Layer – Layer Style, and Select Blending Options.  Once you get into that panel, start applying the following:

Drop Shadow Settings

Inner Shadow Settings

Results

Okay, so now that we have added details it’s time to do our so-called shine job.  Duplicate the original shape of the ribbon, and clear all layer styles.  Set the background to white, and raise (move up) the layer by 3-4 pixels.  Then select your Rectangular Marquee, and trim both sides at least 2 pixels.  Once you have trimmed, you should have a nice-looking duplicate, but a smaller version.  Grab your Eraser Tool, and set it to size 100, and gently brush off the top of the layer.  Your results should be along the lines of this:

Now it’s time to apply our Layer – Layer Style settings.  So go there, and apply the following:

Results

Okay, now go back to the Original Ribbon shape, duplicate it, and set the background to white once again.  After that, grab your Rectangular Marquee Tool, and cut it in half-one being white and the other one blank.  Following that, grab your Eraser Tool, and using the same settings as before, gently brush from top to bottom the right side of your newly-created layer.

So that the Shine will look a little better, let’s apply some Blending Options.

Now that your Ribbon is complete, you can detail it with anything.  I choose for it to be a discount banner for Apple Cinema Displays.  You can use it for any other purposes.  After playing around, here is what I got: