Photoshop to make Flyers

Ultimate Warrior

Hi Guys,

I have being trying to follow some youtube photoshop tutorials.
I am looking to create 1 or 2 flyers per month for my dance classes / events. Currently I have a friend in italy I send the information off to so he does them, but i really would like to know how to do them myself.

If anyone has time to show me I can pay them for a few hours of their time.
I am using CS3 at the moment on my PC

5uspect

Photoshop is pretty easy once you get the basics.
I'm not in a position, or the country, to help you out in person but ask if you have any questions.

urban_oracle

I did one myself a while ago.. using tutorials on youtube.. have a friend that is very good with it.. he might teach you.. where re you based..

ladiesman217

Hi there, for a start you should be using Quark express or Indesign to design your flyers.
You can download a trial version of indesign from the adobe website.

shiftkey

ladiesman217 wrote: »

Hi there, for a start you should be using Quark express or Indesign to design your flyers.
You can download a trial version of indesign from the adobe website.

Do you rate the CorelDraw suite of Design Programs?

Jason Todd

I think Illustrator is best if using just text and vector-based graphics, but definitely InDesign if using some pictures too. I'm not a fan of Photoshop when it comes to text layouts or anything like that.

People have told me CorelDraw is something similar to Illustrator but with a touch of CAD thrown in. I'm not sure what it's like to be honest, but from what I've heard it's more technical based than creative based.

banquo

Avoid Photoshop for text. Bleugh.

Ultimate Warrior

All these posts telling me to use different products.

First off the different products cost money, and some of them serious money.
next no one has actually answered what I asked for, which was some help on showing my how to do it not just give their opinion on a product.

5uspect

Unfortunately that usually how this forum works as there are little or no regular contributors here anymore. Usually a bunch of randomers come on just to tell everyone they can use product X and it's so much better and you should be using it too.

I learned Photoshop using the Photoshop TV podcast. As I said if you have any questions just ask here and I'll try and help.

Happyman42

shiftkey wrote: »

Do you rate the CorelDraw suite of Design Programs?

Corel Draw is perfectly adequate to design and produce print ready graphics. Much cheaper to run as well. There is a degree of snobbery in design about the software you use which you can ignore. With most printers accepting artwork by PDF now, Corel will produce complex graphics all day long. Like all the other software available, there is a learning curve though.

Happyman42

Have a trawl through this site OP http://psd.tutsplus.com/category/tutorials/designing-tutorials/

To ask somebody to teach you is probably the wrong way to go tbh. There is so much to learn for a beginer you would have a fortune spent and still be scratching your head. Much better to have a project in mind, find a tutorial and work through it. Trial and error, don't be intimidated, google is your friend, save regularly and you will get there.

urban_oracle

Ultimate Warrior wrote: »

All these posts telling me to use different products.

First off the different products cost money, and some of them serious money.
next no one has actually answered what I asked for, which was some help on showing my how to do it not just give their opinion on a product.

I answered your question!! You didn't get back to me.

bette

Ultimate Warrior wrote: »

All these posts telling me to use different products.

First off the different products cost money, and some of them serious money.
next no one has actually answered what I asked for, which was some help on showing my how to do it not just give their opinion on a product.

To put it simply - Photoshop is not the correct tool for your job. If you want to dig a hole in the ground you need a shovel. If the ground is hard you could also need a pickaxe.

Now it is possible to dig a hole with a teaspoon. It would take a long time and would not be neat.

What you need to use for your flyers is a page layout program, simple as. If you have photos you may also need photo editing software. Then if illustrations are needed you might need a vectorial drawing program.

All this stuff, especially your Photoshop, have a steep learning curve. Do you have the talent to come to grips with learning something which requires a certain degree of skill?

Being petulant is not the best way to make friends or seek advice.

As for your comments on expensive software you should find some starter stuff here! which you could look into. These people also have a pretty comprehensive forum here where you can get lots of answers and help.

ScumLord

I use photoshop for making brochures and flyers. Once you know photoshop it's almost as easy and you can make everything look really nice. You'll notice many ads and flyers can have little text on them because people aren't necessarily going to read chunks of text.

Video tutorials are good for learning how to achieve something specific but I don't think they'll teach you the basics all that well.

Photoshop can be different for different people so you can find books that come at photoshop from all sorts of angles. I find books are the best way to learn, even better than having someone there to show you everything.

The books I've used are "the missing manual" and "photoshop for photographers".

YOur not going to learn photshop over night. You'll learn the basics of how to use the program and then find out the learning process is only really beginning because techniques are the next level on the learning curve.

Ultimate Warrior

Sorry about not replying Urban, I didn't log in for a few days due to travel.

I have had i response from someone in Dublin, but all help is needed (at present)

5uspect

Ultimate Warrior wrote: »

Sorry about not replying Urban, I didn't log in for a few days due to travel.

I have had i response from someone in Dublin, but all help is needed (at present)

Help us help you. Do you want to create unique flyers each time or do you want to work from a template with updated text/graphics?

How much do you already know and what are you struggling with?

MadsL

A free way to play with Illustrator like design is to download Inkscape.

http://inkscape.org/download/

Lots of tutorials online too.

5uspect

Folks, the OP has been quite clear that they have been using Photoshop for flyers to date and wish to continue to do so.

While there may be better/free applications for making flyers, it would be helpful if people can answer the OPs questions rather than make off topic suggestions.

Ultimate Warrior

I want to have 2 flyers, 1 will be used over and over (just times to be changed on a monthly basis.

The order will have to be changed, a photo to change monthly, some text (date & activity) an colouring but the format will remain the same

5uspect

Ultimate Warrior wrote: »

I want to have 2 flyers, 1 will be used over and over (just times to be changed on a monthly basis.

The order will have to be changed, a photo to change monthly, some text (date & activity) an colouring but the format will remain the same

Okay, sounds reasonable. You can create two templates that make changes easy. There are a bunch of somewhat advanced features that let you make powerful changes. But first we need to get the basics sorted.

Are you familiar with the concept of layers? Or are you totally new to Photoshop?

valeriebaer

Ultimate Warrior wrote: »

I want to have 2 flyers, 1 will be used over and over (just times to be changed on a monthly basis.

The order will have to be changed, a photo to change monthly, some text (date & activity) an colouring but the format will remain the same

Im glad I arrived in the nick of time.

Photoshop is perfect for flyers, you only need Illustrator if your designs are going to be used for larger images (posters, banners etc)

The next thing you need to know is the vast majority of graphic designers dont design their own designs - they merely edit them.

So go learn the basics of photoshop - how to use layers etc...and then goto a website like graphicriver - and select one of their templates (normally just 2 or 3 dollars)...

You could pay someone a few hundred quid to show you how to do that - or just be smart and learn the basics so you can edit a design.

For cheap printing use Quinns the printers in belfast. They do free delivery.

You may also find free templates online if you look.

Ultimate Warrior

I have the 2 templates done from the past,
I can send them to you so you cna see what I am looking for?

5uspect

Upload them if you want.

sligoface

OP, i use CS3 for designing posters and flyers for shows, it's not the best to use as many have mentioned but like yourself this is all i have and can't afford anything else right now.

When setting up your document, select CMYK color. Most printers are CMYK, if you don't build it in CMYK you could have problems.

not sure how far along you are or what is giving you trouble, but in CS3 their is an option along the top for your workspace which will change the interface slightly. Select the one 'called working with type.'

You select the T tool for drawing text boxes, each will be on it's own layer. On the right (usually for me) is the layers palette, character palette and I think a paragraph one as well. You can drag each one out to separate them by clicking on the tab.

If you want to move any text boxes or edit the type in them in any way you have to select it from the layers palette first. A text box layer will have a T icon. If you right click on any layer and select 'Layer properties' you can name it to avoid confusion.

If you want to edit the type, after clicking on the layer in the palette, click on the text box.

If you want to resize the text box you have to make sure to click the T icon first or it will stretch the type out. You can stretch type if you want but it doesn't usually look good esp. if done too often. It's better to just change the font size at the top of the screen. Use the 'smooth' option to avoid any type looking jagged when printed.

If you want to move the text box around, you have to select the type layer and the directional tool, or the arrows on your keyboard if you want to keep it in a straight line.

Use the character palette to change the spacing between letters and between lines if you need to. Be aware that if you change a font size from 10 to 14 for example, you may need to change the spacing between the lines to match the new font size. Use the paragraph palette to set things like center, justify, etc.

Place photos, etc. by either selecting File--Place or you can open the image and with both files open, use the directional tool to select the image if it is a single layer and drag it into the other image, or select the layer you want in one file and drag it into the other image. This way can be handier than file place because you can crop or resize the image before dragging it in, just make sure that you don't save the changes to the file you drag in when you close it.

If you want to resize an image you placed/dragged in and keep it in the correct proportions, hold the shift key before dragging from one of the corners.
Oh, you mite need to click on 'show transform controls' or 'free transform' with the multi-directional tool to get the handles to come up to resize it.

If you want to color in the background or say, draw a colored rectangle, double click on the foreground color at the bottom of the work space, you can then pick a color to draw it with. Select New Layer, then the rectangle tool and then draw it.

You can also delete or duplicate layers. A duplicate layer will appear directly on top of the one it's copied from so you might need to move it with the arrow keys to see it.

When you are finished with your design, save it as a psd so you have a version where you can edit all the layers. But if you are sending it to print or are emailing it to someone, click on Layer--Flatten image. This merges all the layers to make the file smaller as PSD (photoshop) files are large. Then you can save it as a jpeg, tiff or pdf which are most common for printing. Once the image is flattened, you won't be able to edit the type layers.

Google an excellent article called 'the 3 deadly sins of print design'. It's hard to tell someone how to use a program in a post but hopefully that will get you on the right track, it's very possible I missed something or didn't explain it properly.

Control z (undo), or it's buddy Step Backward will be your new best friends for a while.

twowheelsonly

The best suggestion that I can make is that you just 'play' with Photoshop regularly for a while before you start worrying about your own flyers.
Learn the basics such as layers and blending to see what can be achieved in a relatively short time and quite simply.
Flyers should be fairly basic anyway but the more that you 'play' with Photoshop the more ideas that you'll come up with yourself.

This site is good for basic tutorials and step by step instructions :

http://www.photoshopessentials.com/

Have a look along the top Menu (Red line) to see what's available to you in easy to follow steps for Basics, Ediiting, Text Editing and essentials such as Resizing and Colour Selection.
Just follow the instructions for the moment and as you do more you should hit a 'Eureka' moment where you realise that it's not all massively complicated after all. (It is....but only when you dig too deep!!!)

Good Luck...

Ultimate Warrior

Brilliant i'll try thanks