How to Make a Flyer in Photoshop

A flier made with Adobe Photoshop CS2

A one-page flier can be a quick runoff, or it can be designed to look professional. Using Photoshop, you can do either. The better looking the flier is, the more it will get noticed. Photoshop gives you the tools to make the subject stand out.

Difficulty:

Moderately Challenging

Instructions

Things You'll Need

• Adobe Photoshop CS2

1. Go to the File menu and select New. Use a high resolution to get clear, crisp images and text. Six hundred dots per inch is good, but it will be a big file. Don't go below 200 dpi because the images and text won't look good. Choose a standard 8.5-inch width and 11-inch height. This will print to standard or colored paper, or card stock.

2. Start with an image, a photo if possible. If you're making a flier for a music event, get a photo of the band or performers, scan it and use it as the centerpiece. Open the photo in a separate window from the blank you've made. Using the pointer tool, click, hold and drag the photo onto the blank document. It will create a new Layer that you can move around. If the image is too big or small, or if you want to distort it in some way, go to the Edit menu, then choose Transform or Free Transform. The former has presets such as Skew, Rotate and Scale, while the latter allows you to do whatever you wish with the image. When the photo is the way you want it, double-click on it and it will be stable.

3. Try a gradient background. Go to the Tool bar on the left and choose Gradient. It's the fifth item down on the right of the two rows. It may appear as a paint bucket as the default. Click and hold for a pop-up that will allow you to switch to Gradient. To create the gradient, take the mouse to the upper left corner, click and drag down to the lower right corner. The gradient will form behind the photo you've placed. You can start a gradient from any place on the blank file, making sure you have the Background Layer selected, and create a variety of them. On the horizontal Tool bar at the top left, you can click to change the type and color of the gradient.

4. Work on the text. You should use a big headline under or over the photo. This usually will contain the grab line. If the band is well-known, use the band name. If the place the band is playing is more known, use that. Select a font that expresses the band. If it's a thrash metal band, use a jagged, rougher-looking font. If it's a light music group, use a softer font. Each time you click the "T" on the Tool bar and click the mouse somewhere else on the screen, you will create a new layer. This is useful when moving parts of the text around. If you like the same font and style, go to Layer and select Duplicate Layer. This new layer can be moved around with the pointer tool.

5. Line everything up using the Align tools in the horizontal Tool bar. You can center them with this, line them up left or right, or top or bottom. To do this, go to the Window menu and select Layers. In the Layers pop-up, shift-click all the layers you want to line up, then click the appropriate Align tool in the top tool bar.

6. Save the file as a Photoshop (.psd) document so you can retain the layers. This will be a big document, but it allows you to use the same format many times by just changing certain elements and leaving the rest intact. For example, if you're making fliers for your club and will have different bands each week, you can use the same background, same gradient and same font while replacing the photo and the band name.

7. Save a copy of the flier, then go to the Layer menu and choose Flatten Image. This will remove the layers and make one file. Save this as a TIFF or JPEG. You can print more easily from this type of file than a .psd file. If you are going to have the flier printed by a print shop, you can save it to a PDF and put it on a disk for easy transport.

Resources

• Read this Article in Spanish