How to Make a Gift Certificate Using Photoshop

This Photoshop tutorial provides detailed instructions for creating a professional, striking gift certificate for your business or organization.

Difficulty: Moderately Easy

Instructions

Things You'll Need:

• Computer running Photoshop - Photoshop CS2 was used for this tutorial
• A color printer or print service to produce hard copy of the gift certificate

1. 
   Prepare to create a new Photoshop document

   Launch Photoshop on your computer. Select New from the File menu.

2. 
   Settings for the gift certificate document

   In the New dialogue box, set the Width to 8.5 inches, the Height to 3.62 inches, the Resolution to 300 and the Background Contents to White.

3. 
   Prepare to download the background image

   To download the beautiful background for your gift certificate, use your browser to go to this web page:
   http://qtmonster.typepad.com/ehow/gift_certificate_bckgrnd.jpg

4. 
   Save the background picture in your My Pictures folder

   On this web page you will see the gift certificate image. You need to save this image on your computer. Right click on the image with your mouse and choose "Save Image As". Save the picture in your My Pictures folder.

5. 
   Prepare to place the background image

   In Photoshop, choose Place from the File menu.

6. 
   Gift certificate with background image

   Navigate to the background image that you saved from the internet in step 4 above. Select the image and click on the Place button. The image will now be placed on the gift certificate in Photoshop. Press the Enter key to accept the placing of the picture.

7. 
   Select the Photoshop Text Tool

   To personalize the gift certificate for your business or organization, select the Text tool from the Tools palette.

8. 
   Enter the name of your business or organization

   Click anywhere in the gift certificate with the Photoshop Text Tool, and enter the name of your business or organization. (For this tutorial, "Main Street Jewelers" was used as the business name.)

9. 
   Select the Move Tool

   Click on the Move Tool in the Photoshop Tools Palette.

10. 
    Select the text layer

    Select the Photoshop layer that contains the business name text.

11. 
    Text format settings

    In the Character Palette, select the font, font size and font color for your business or organization name. For this tutorial these were chosen:
    Font: Imprint MT Shadow
    Font Size: 38 pt
    Color: green

12. 
    Completed gift certificate

    Congratulations, your gift certificate is ready for print. Good Job!