Sticky Note

A sticky note (or Post-it) is a fun effect to create in Photoshop and was one of my first forays into photorealism.

As you make your own sticky note, you’ll be working with these Photoshop concepts and techniques:

• Using the Shape tool
• Modifying a Shape using the Pen Tools
• Making and using a Shading Brush
• Making a realistic shadow

1. Make the basic Shape

We’re going to begin by making a yellow square.

• File > New. Choose RGB and 300 ppi (if you want to print this) or 72 ppi.
• Choose Rectangle Tool .
• Choose color.
• Be sure that you have Shape chosen in the Tool Mode.
• Be sure that you have New Layer chosen in the Path Operations .

• And drag out your rectangle! If you want a perfect square, hold Shift as you drag.
• What do you notice about your Layers palette? Why did I not have you to make a new layer for this square?

Tip: If you want to choose a color that is on the web, or someplace on your computer that’s not in Photoshop, here’s what you do:
1. Click your Color Picker.
2. Put your pointer on your canvas and it turns into the Eyedropper.
3. DRAG the Eyedropper out of PS over to the color you want to sample.

2. Adjust the Shape

This is a pretty sad looking Post-it right now. Let’s make it so that its bottom part curves out, as if it were stuck on our monitor. We’ll do this adjustment using the Pen Tools.

• Choose the Add Point Tool.  This is NOT the Freeform Pen, or any of the others there.
• Using this tool, click where we are going to want to anchor this path. You’ll see what I mean by that in a minute. To the left is the path with one new anchor point added. Below, I’ve added 4.

• Now we’ll move those bottom four points, to make the note look “bent.” Choose the Direct Selection tool.
• Click-drag this tool as if you were making a rectangular marquee around all 4 of these points. After you release your mouse, the bottom 4 Anchor Points will be black, showing that they are selected — ready for action!

With the same Direct Selection tool, drag the lower part of the note over to one side, as I’ve done to the right. When you release the mouse, the color will fill into the new path boundaries!

The Anchor Points that we added in the top row “anchor” the note to the wall where it is affixed. The bottom 2 give the note that characteristic bend. You can use the handles on the lower anchor points to create a little bit of a curl on the bottom, too, if you like.

3. Make the “glue.”

The good thing about Post-It “glue,” is that it’s barely there, but it does show just a bit, as a little darker area. We can make this happen with the Burn tool, right on the Fill layer, but it can be difficult getting this just right, and what if you decide later that you want the glue to be a little lighter?

It’s just as easy to do this using another layer:

• Make a new layer by clicking the Create a New Layer button at the bottom of the Layers palette.
• Choose your Shading Brush. If you don’t have one yet, it’s time to make one! (See this link!)

Now, we’re going to use a different color than the black. Click your Foreground Color square in the toolbox and choose a color that’s just a little down and to the right of your original note color.

• Ctrl-click the Note layer’s thumbnail. This will load the shape as a selection, enabling you to easily stay between the lines, when you paint!
• Make a new layer above the note layer and paint in your glue. (shown at left) Because you have that airbrush option chosen, the longer you leave the brush on one spot, the more paint will build up there. Also, you may want to make more than one stroke, till you get it right.
• Lower the opacity of the glue layer if you need to.

4. Make the shadow

• Make a new layer beneath the Note layer and label this “Shadow.”
• Use the Rectangular Marquee to make a square about the size of the note’s square.
• Fill this with black. (Type D for Default colors, and then Alt-Backspace.) Ctrl-D to deselect.
• Filter > Blur > Gaussian Blur.. and choose a setting that makes your blur look shadowy. This will still look pretty bad.

• Choose your Eraser tool. Change your settings so that they are similar to your Shading Brush (above). I saved this as a preset for my Eraser tool, calling it my AA Easy-does-it Eraser.
• Use this eraser to gradually lose the extra shadow. In particular, you want the shadow to be gone on the right side of the note, and you want it to taper in toward the top part of the note.
• You may want to reduce the opacity of the shadow layer.