Transparent Capsule

As you progress through this project, you’ll be working with these:

• Making shapes
• Using alpha channels to save selections
• Manipulating selections
• Using the gradient tool
• Using filters
• Using multiple layers to achieve effects
• Using opacity settings

There are 7 components to this seemingly simple capsule:

• The main base capsule shape
• The Alpha Channels
• The lower blurred white highlight inside the capsule
• The upper sharp highlight
• The darker shading around the edge of the capsule and at the top corners
• The glow, or colored shadow, under the capsule
• The distortion through the capsule

File > New. For this, use a canvas of 1000 x 1000. File > Save as… Save it in PSD format, give it a name, and put it where you’ll find it.

1. The Capsule Shape
   • Choose your Rounded Rectangle tool . It’s with your other Shape tools.
   • Choose a color and then, in your Options, choose Shape.
   • Just drag out any rounded rectangle. We’ll fix it in a moment.
   • As soon as you drag it out, you’ll see before you the Properties palette.

• • Set yours up as mine is. Your Width should be about 3x the Height. And make the Height an even number.
  • Then, down at my second arrow, you’ll set up the corner radii. Make this number half of the height. When you do one, the others will fill in. And your capsule takes shape on your canvas!
  • If you want to move it, center it on your canvas, now’s a good time to do that.
  • Ctrl-S to save.

What’s an Alpha Channel, anyway?
An Alpha Channel is just a fancy name for “let’s make a selection and save it here”. The selected part is in white and the unselected part is in black.

There are some cool things about selecting in this way. First, you can also save PART of the opacity of a pixel, by making it GRAY. Also, you can use filters and distortions on channels, just as you can on layers.

Adding to the selection or taking away, is just as easy as painting on a layer. Too, if you save your file in psd format, any channels will also be saved, so when you open your file again, the selection will still be there in the form of the Alpha channel.

2. Alpha Channels
   • A. Capsule Alpha Channel
     • Ctrl-click your Shape Layer’s thumbnail in your Layers palette.
     • Click the tab for your Channels palette. It is nested behind your Layers palette.
     • Click the Create a New Channel icon and name this channel Capsule.
     • You should see the selection ants on a black background. Notice that your foreground color is now white. Alt-Backspace to fill your selection with white.

• B. Highlight Alpha Channel. I want my highlight to be 1/3 the height of the capsule and about 80% of its width. I want it centered on the capsule, too.
  • Make another new Channel and name this Highlight.
  • We’re going to transform this selection that’s still active.
  • Select > Transform Selection.
    
  • In the Options Bar, there are numbers. Find where it says W and H. Between these is a tiny link symbol. Be sure that it is not selected.
  • Into the W area, put in 80%. Into the L area, put in 33%. Press Enter.
  • Alt-backspace fills your selection with white on your new channel. Ctrl-D to deselect.
  • Ctrl-S to save the file.
    

3. Lower blurred highlight inside the capsule. For this, we’re going to use that freshly-created Highlight channel.
   • In your Layers palette, make a new layer above your Capsule layer. Name it Inner Highlight.
   • Choose white for your foreground color.
   • Return to the Channels palette and Ctrl-click the Highlight channel.
   • Back in your Layers palette, click your Inner Highlight layer and Alt-backspace to fill that selection. Ctrl-D to deselect.
   • Filter > Blur > Gaussian Blur till you like the amount of blur. For mine, I’m using 30.
   • Choose the Move tool (or press V) and drag your highlight to the lower third of the capsule.

4. Upper Sharp Highlight. This is what’s going to really make this capsule look shiny.
   • Return to the Channels palette.
   • Ctrl-click on Alpha 2 to reload the selection.
   • Return to the layers palette and open a new layer.
   • Name the new layer Top Highlight.
   • Choose the Gradient tool and the linear gradient option in the options bar.
   • In your color picker, choose the original capsule color for the background color and white for the foreground.
   • As you drag your gradient, hold the Shift key to keep the gradient perfectly vertical.
   • Drag the gradient from the top to the bottom, inside the selection. Ctrl-D to deselect.
   • Ctrl-S to Save.

• Move this Highlight to very close to the top edge, as shown at the right.
• Then Edit -> Transform -> Distort and pull the corners till the transformation box is trapezoidal in shape as shown.
• Ctrl-D to deselect.

5. The darker shading around the edge of the capsule and at the top corners.
   • Make a New Layer above the Top Highlight layer. Name this one Shading.
   • Choose your Shading Brush. If you have not made a Shading Brush, do it now. It’s a valuable thing to have, if you want to do anything that looks real. Here is a link to how to make my Shading Brush. Make black your foreground color.
   • Ctrl-click the Capsule in the Alpha Channels.
   • Now return to your Shading layer and touch your Shading brush just outside of the actual capsule selection. You’ll see the edges of the capsule darken a bit. That’s what we want!

6. The glow, or colored shadow, under the capsule. Make a new layer and do this just as you did the Inner Highlight. The only difference is that you’ll use the color of your capsule, instead of white. Then drag it to beneath your capsule as I have done at the right. Go on and do it. I’ll wait here.

• Type some text or put some artwork onto a layer beneath all the other layers. This will enable you to see how much you can see through the capsule.
• Adjust opacities on your various layers as needed to give your capsule reality!
• You may also want to add some more blur to some layers. If you do this and want to “trim” extra blur, you can use that Capsule Alpha Channel. Ctrl-click it, then Ctrl-Shift-I to Inverse the selection. Then click Delete.
• To distort the image a bit under your image, rasterize your type, if you’re using a Type layer. To do this, right-click the Type layer in the palette and choose Rasterize.
• Ctrl-click the Capsule Alpha channel and then Filter > Distort > Spherize. A little goes a long way, but have a go at it!
• Save this as a JPG and send it to me!