Planning a summer party? Shutterstock's amazing Photoshop tutorial for recreating the look of traditional letterpress will guarantee some serious oohs and aahs for your invite - for very little money!
I love the look and feel of letterpress - who doesn't? This traditional technique uses special metal plates to emboss type and images on paper. Sounds simple, but getting the real thing can be prohibitively expensive - increasingly, what used to be standard is a technique practiced only by skilled artisans. But wouldn't it be great to get that old-fashioned look for everyday use?
Thanks to the inventive folks over at Shutterstock, you can. Their Photoshop tutorial to recreate the embossed shadows of letterpress yields some pretty impressive results - would you have guessed that the image above was created on a computer? I give myself a bit (maybe too much!) credit for knowledge of all things print-y, and I wouldn't have had a clue.
I find that working knowledge of Photoshop makes all of my craft projects go a little bit easier. From coloring an illustration to working on a layout for a quilt, Photoshop does it all (as do its cheapie competitors, GIMP and Pixelmator.)
Are you a letterpress die-hard, hankering after the real thing? Check out this amazing Etsy blog post explaining every step of traditional letterpress, courtesy of Rochester, New York's own Pistachio Press. Do a little Etsy digging and I'm sure you'll find a quality letterpress studio near you.
What's your crafty computer comfort zone - are you zooming into the 21st century or looking fondly back to a simpler time? Let us know, in the comments section!
