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Start off by preparing your document; you may use a pre-made background listed below.

Let’s begin by creating one of the sides to our pyramid. The pen tool settings are listed below the preview.

Alright.  We have one of our sides.  Let’s begin adding the indent triangle inside.  Using the same pen tool settings, create a similar shape as mine inside.

It looks a little flat because we haven’t added the base to our newly-indented side of a pyramid. Let’s do that right now

Let’s polish our original side of the pyramid.  Take out your doge tool, set it to size 180 and Exposure to 50%, and begin brushing it following the diagram below:

Let’s add an overlay and lower the opacity so that we can make the lighting stand out more.

Let’s go back to the indented pyramid and add some shadows to the base.  Following the diagram below, set your Burn tool to size 40 and begin brushing:

Looking good.  Go back to your original layer of the big pyramid and duplicate it.  Then go to Edit – Transform – Flip Horizontal.

Time for detail once again except this time, we will begin with the shadows since we need to have a set direction of light.  Take out the Burn Tool.  Set the size to 180 and the Exposure at 50%, and start brushing following the diagram below:

After that, drop the opacity to 70% and you should have something along the lines of this:

On top of the shadows, we need to fix up the light as well.  So take out your Dodge Tool and set the size to 180 and Exposure 50%.  Begin brushing following the diagram below:

Apply the same overlay as you have did in the previous step.  After that, duplicate the indented triangle and go to Edit – Transform – Flip Horizontal.  Now you’re pretty much done.  Take a look at what this pyramid came out to be:

That about wraps it all.  Hopefully it was a relatively easy tutorial to follow.

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So let’s start with creating our document, I have prepped a background for you guys already, if you wish to use it.

Now by grabbing your Rectangular Marquee tool, create a new layer and an outline for the frame of the interface.

Using the preferences below, apply a stroke to the outline:

Great, now we have the border for our interface.  So let’s start adding the detail touches so that we can make it look more metal-like.  Using our Dodge Tool with a diameter set to 45px, start stroking the left edge of the frame as shown below.  Apply the following effect over and over with different sizes along the other edges.

Eventually, your results should come out to be looking along the lines of this:

Now that we have the feel of the metallic frame, let’s work on our Gun Metal background.  Simply begin by taking out the Rectangular Marquee tool and creating another rectangle inside the current frame, approximately 2px-3px apart.

Follow that up with adding some noise:

Good.  Let’s move on to our shadows.  Go to your Layer – Layer Style – Inner Shadow and apply the following preferences:

For the final touch, let’s add a little bit of bevel.  Look below:

Okay, now to fix a little bit of the lighting, we are going to duplicate the layer and clear it off all styles.  (Clear Layer Styles.)  Following that, grab your Dodge Tool, and set the diameter to approximately 125px and stroke in the direction shown below, gradually decreasing.

After that, set the Blending options in Layer – Layer Style to Overlay, and drop the opacity to 25%.  You should be looking at aproximately the same results on your screen:

You can really do a lot with this tutorial using different shapes and methods.  This is just the basic introduction, the same way that you start to learn animation with the beginner’s step of adapting the color to change under a sequence of frames.

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Let’s begin by setting up our environment.  As usual, I have already premade a background for you guys to use so that you may just design over it.

Now grab your Rounded Rectangle Tool, set the radius to 8, and fill it in with the hex displayed below:

Our base of the interface is now ready, so let’s begin slowly adding layers of detail.  Our first layer would be to add some shadows.  So duplicate the original layer that you have just made and following the guidelines below, apply your burn tool with the Range set to Mid tones and Exposure at 100%.

Now let’s add detail to our shadowing.  We will begin with the Inner Shadow.  Please apply the settings listed below:

Good.  We are working our way up to the pattern.  You will need to choose a pattern that you may like.  However, below I have attached mine.

We have our base of shadows and patterns.  Let’s add some depth by adding a darker shadow.  Using the same technique with the burn tools described above, duplicate the original layer of the base and setting your size approximately to 200, burn over the orange until it turns into a dark brown/orange. After that, grab your eraser tool and take off all the unnecessary orange on top, leaving just the shadow.

Just for the final touch, we need a little bit of glare.  So duplicate your original base, set it to white, and slice it about 3/4 in.  After that, set the opacity down to 10%.

Looking good there.  It’s time to create our interface’s display.  Go back to your Rounded Rectangle Tool, and create a rounded rectangle inside your current one, except with a size 10 radius.  The hex for the color is listed inside.

We need to spice up our display, so below, I have listed a set of effects that I have applied to that specific layer.  Apply the same settings over, and we will take a look at our results:

Drop Shadow

Inner Shadow

Wood Trim

Take a look at what you have.  Throw some text on it, and there you have it-your very own royal interface.

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Let’s begin by establishing our working environment.  I have prepared a background for you guys, so will free to use it.  If you would like to create your own, feel free to do that as well.

Now let’s upload some brushes that we will use to light up the background a little.  I have attached an image below of where you need to go to upload the Assorted Brushes.  Once you have them uploaded by selecting random sets place them all around.  After that, apply the overlay effect that is listed below along with the results.

Overlay effect

Results

Let’s add some more of the dust that I used.  The dust is basically a small round brush with the tip size ranging from 1-8 px.  Randomizing is the best way to go, as it creates a nice effect.  So in the previous step, we worked with a white color.  Select the black now, and add some more of the dust.  Then overlay with the same effect, except this time drop the opacity to 25%.

Here is where the fun part comes in.  We now will begin to design the actual heart, so go to your Custom Shapes and select the heart brush.  I have attached a quick snapshot of which brush specifically to select.

Brush

We have to add some 3D effects to make our heart look more realistic.  I have listed various effects below, so start applying each one of them in the order given.

Results

Duplicate the heart now, and create various sizes all around to create the effect sort of like ”love is all around”.  Here is the pattern that I used in creating my hearts:

Go back to your Custom Shapes, and from the list, select the Ribbon.  Flip it vertically by going to Edit Transform – Flip Vertical.  Make sure you set the background to white.

Let’s apply a nice gradient overlay and drop shadows to give it more depth.

Results

It’s time to personalize your heart.  You can go with the original “I love you,” or anything creative that you may want your special one to see.  Below, I have listed what effects I used to create the warped effect.  To those who might not be familiar with Warp text effects, once you have selected your text, it will be the second button from the right.

Results

You can always add some text into the ribbon.  For example, I went with “You have my heart”.  I used the hex #b73636 for the text color, and the drop shadow effect is listed below.

And there you have it, a quick and simple but effective card that might just melt your lover’s heart