How to Design a Paint Job on a Guitar in Photoshop
You can design your own guitar finish using Adobe Photoshop. With its simple user interface, you can design a very basic or a complex, artistic finish that will turn your guitar into a one-of-a kind instrument that expresses your personality. By following simple steps, you can either send your file to a custom shop to replicate or use it as a guideline to finish your guitar by yourself.
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Instructions
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Scan a template of the shape of the guitar you will eventually be painting. You want the template to match the shape of the guitar perfectly so that your design will look right when completed by you or a custom guitar shop. If it is a common shape like a Les Paul or Fender Stratocaster, use any picture you can find as you can remove the picture's paint job in Photoshop.
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Open the scanned photo or template in Photoshop. Click "File" on the menu bar and click "Open." Browse to where the picture is and double click it to open it in the main Photoshop window.
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Choose the Paint Bucket and the color White on the color menu. The Paint Bucket is located on the left side in the tool area, and your color choice can be made in the color palette on the right hand side of the main window.
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Click anywhere within the body of the photo. Your goal is to make the entire guitar body white so that you can design your own paint job. Starting with white will allow you to envision what you want before applying your colors, and by eliminating the color in the photo you will not be influenced.
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Choose a color to paint the guitar. Click the color closest to what you would like, then click anywhere inside the body. The entire area will be "painted" the color of your choice. Photoshop paints within the lines of the area, so click any areas of the body that were not changed to the color you chose.
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Change to the Paint Brush tool to customize your paint job. You can choose the size of the paint brush tip as well. With this tool you can paint flames, lines or any other type of design, free-hand, with any color you choose. You can also fill in your guitar body with a pattern by choosing a pattern via the drop-down menu in the Paint Bucket dialog box.
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Tips & Warnings
Remember to save often as you do not want to lose the work you have done up to that point.
