Photoshop Tutor

Creating a Ribbon

By Michael in Tutorials

Today we are going to create a Ribbon that can be used for practically anything. In our specific example, we will be creating an advertisement banner for a store, a website, or any place that sells hardware.

Lets begin by creating our self a nice background/environment to place our Ribbon and details. The Color used for the background is #83b70b and Gradient Layer Style you can see below along with the small preview.

Now that you have done that, lets 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, right 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 its 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 quiet 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 its time to do our so called shine job. Duplicate the original shape of the ribbon and clear all layer styles. Set the back ground 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 of the top of the layer. Your results should be along the lines of this:

Now its 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 settigns as before gently brush from top to bottom the right side of your newly created layer.

So the Shine will look a little better, lets apply some Blending Options.

Results

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 round, here is what i got:

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