Graphics Zone - High Impact Banners Part 1

XRATED BUCKS

High Impact Banners Part 1
by BarryHilton, Adult NetSurprise

In this series of tutorials we'll be designing high impact banners, both animated and static, while exploring techniques to achieve good click through ratios. Make your banners stand out from the crowded page!

We'll be starting with designing a 120x60 animated banner, as it involves many steps we'll the tutorial is split into two parts. Start by opening up a new image 120x60 pixels in size... Click Here to view Screen Shot with Instructions

Save the three boob images to your harddrive, open them in Photoshop and drag the third image into your banner... Click Here to view Screen Shot with Instructions.

Drag the first image into your banner... Click Here to view Screen Shot with Instructions.

And drag the second image into your banner to make the last frame in our boob sequence... Click Here to view Screen Shot with Instructions.

Now we'll add a border to our banner, add a new layer for our border, then select a fixed size marquee set at 118x58 pixels (to create a 1 pixel border). Click inside your image to place the marquee and drag it to the top left corner, it will snap into position as you get close... Click Here to view Screen Shot with Instructions.

Use the arrow keys to nudge the marquee 1 pixel down and 1 pixel right, so it's in the center or your image, then select Inverse... Click Here to view Screen Shot with Instructions.

Reset your colors, select the paint bucket tool and click inside your image to paint the border black. Then deselect the marquee... Click Here to view Screen Shot with Instructions.

Now, add a new layer above the top boom layer (layer 4). We''re going to add a bar for our text, so select a fixed size marquee 120x16 pixels. Click inside your image and drag the marquee to the bottom edge... Click Here to view Screen Shot with Instructions.

Change the foreground color to dark red... Click Here to view Screen Shot with Instructions.

Paint your bar red and deselect the marquee... Click Here to view Screen Shot with Instructions.

Change the layer style to multiply, creating a transparent red bar... Click Here to view Screen Shot with Instructions.

Add a stroke border to the red bar, this makes the bar stant out from rest of the banner and will give our text area good imapct and definition... Click Here to view Screen Shot with Instructions.

Now, we want the boobs to overlap the red bar, giving a pseudo 3d effect and enhancing the impact of our banner. Use the lasso tool to draw around the boobs, holding shift to add the second selection...Click Here to view Screen Shot with Instructions.

Press ctrl c to copy the boob sleection, then ctrl v to paste the selection onto a new layer. Click on the new layer and drag it above the bar layer (layer 6)... Click Here to view Screen Shot with Instructions.

Change to the first boob frame (layer 2), and draw around the overlapping boob with the lasso tool... Click Here to view Screen Shot with Instructions.

Copy and paste the boob selection usinf ctrl c and ctrl v, drag the new boob above the bar layer as in the previous example...Click Here to view Screen Shot with Instructions.

Right click on each layer name and enter your own names so the layers are easy to find... Click Here to view Screen Shot with Instructions. We've reached the end of part 1, so save the banner as a .psd file to use in part 2 of our high impact banners series...

Here's our three frames so far... Click Here to view our final example frames.