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American Flag
by Matt Kloskowski
ExtremePhotoshop.com

Keeping with the American spirit, I thought a patriotic American flag tutorial was called
for. Fortunately, Photoshop ships with a Custom Shape preset that does most of the
work for you.

Step 1: Create a new 500 x 300 pixel 72 dpi canvas in Photoshop. Be sure, at this point,
you only have one layer named "background" and that its filled with white.

Step 2: Select the Custom Shape Tool. It is located within the Shape Tools flyout in the
Toolbar.

Step 3: Next, click the small down arrow next to the Shape area in the options bar to
pick a custom shape. By default, you may not have the US Flag shape showing.
However, if you click the options arrow to the right of the palette and select Objects,
then click "Append" if Photoshop asks if you would like to replace the current shapes.
Now you should see the US Flag custom shape.
Step 4: Now you're ready to draw your shape. The first step is to be sure that the Paths
button is clicked in the options bar. We don't want to actually create any pixels yet.

Step 5: Set your foreground color to black by pressing D. Hold down the Shift key to
constrain the flag's proportions and draw a shape that spans the exact size of the
canvas. You can use the spacebar to move the flag shape around before you actually
release your mouse button to help you position it correctly.

Step 6: Move over to the Paths palette. You should have one "Work Path" layer in it at
this point. Click the Load Path as Selection button at the bottom of the palette to turn
this path into a selection.
Step 7: Now go back to the layers palette and create a new layer named COLOR. With
the selection still active, fill it with R:255 G:0 B:0 on the new layer.

Step 8: Now lock the COLOR layer by clicking the Lock Transparent Pixels button toward
the top left of the Layers palette.

Step 9: OK, we're almost done. Now Zoom in on the star area within the flag. Using the
Rectangular Marquee Tool to put a rectangular selection around the rectangle that holds
the starts.

Step 10: Set your foreground color to R:0 G:0 B:255 and press Alt/Option + Backspace
to fill the selection with blue. There you have it - an American flag.
A practical application of this exercise would be to double the file size and resolution
used in Step 1 when creating the flag. Complete the steps displayed here and save the
file into a common library of graphics on your computer. This way, you'll have an
american flag to use for nearly any type of project be it print or web.

As always, please feel free to email me at ExtremePhotoshop@yahoo.com if you have

any questions. Also stop by my website at www.ExtremePhotoshop.com for more
tutorials. Until next time...

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