Photoshop
Elements 3 Tutorial
Design Your Own Web Ads
One way to promote your site is to create your
own ads. Most graphic ads come in 'somewhat'
standard sizes, but if you're creating them for
your own site, you can make them any size you
need to fit an ad area. If you already have
graphics of your own products, you can use
those. Or you might want to match the 'theme' of
your site by using similar color schemes or
photos that get your point across.
Start with a new layer 130 x 220 px, white
background (or match the background color of your HTML
page), select the 'rounded rectangle tool' and
draw out a shape in a color of your choice. Hit
'V' to select the shape then add a grey 1 px
border to it "Edit | Stroke Outline
(Selection)". You can add a border without using
the move tool to actively select the layer, but
it's a good habit to get into since a lot of
times you will want to actually see what area
you are applying an effect to and may need to
select it first.
You should have something similar to the first
example below. Create another layer and change
the foreground color to white. Then using the
rectangle tool, draw out more boxes, each on
their own layer and set the opacity slider to
about 50 - 60% (example 2). Leave the top layer
box at 100% opacity (example 3). Save your file
as a .psd so you can re-use it to create similar
ads. You'll see why putting each piece on a
separate layer is a great advantage for creating
multiple versions of your ad.
Now you should have a generic ad box that you
can use to create more ads simply by adding
different text and graphics to it. You can swap
out or recolor layers to create a whole set of
ads that compliment your site because you have
an ad template to start with.
Create another layer and add a clipart button so
you will have something to click for your
hyperlink or draw a button yourself (example 4).
Add some text about your product (example 5)
then finish off the ad with a photo or clipart.
Rearrange your layers so the main graphic is
underneath all layers except the background
layers and so the text layers are on top of the
rectangle boxes.
If you want to get fancy, you could airbrush
some subtle shading around the edges of the
background color to give it some depth and make
it more interesting. After all, you want people
to find it attractive so they will be enticed to
click on your ad.
Now that you have your basic ad template in
editable .psd format, you can change the pieces
to create even more ads and variations for all
your projects. You can design your ads as three
dimensional or flat as you need to match your
site.
Why not use your ads in printed
material too? Simply by making a few changes in
your layout and resizing your graphics to 300
ppi, you can get them to professionally print at
high resolution to match your printed marketing
materials, even on your own photo quality inkjet
printer.
Hmmm... that's another tutorial. Here are some
more variations and sizes using .psd ad
templates:
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