Marquee Tools
The marquee tool is used to make shapes and objects on layers. There are different settings you can use, such as the rectangular or elliptical tool. The elliptical tool is used to create rounded shapes, like circles and ovals. To draw a perfect circle, its important to hold the shift key whilst drawing the shape. I used the elliptical tool freehand to practice drawing this oval, and used the fill tool to colour the oval red. I selected the colour by picking a shade via the colour selection tool on the right hand side of the program. Once I had finished moving my shape, I pressed the shift key and then D to de - select it.
The gradient tool is sometimes located on the toolbar by itself, but in this case it was hidden on the colour fill tool, so to collect the gradient tool I had to right click on the fill tool and select it. There are several different gradient types and colours to choose from, but I decided to just stick with my one red colour and have it slowly fade to white. When using the gradient tool, I drew a line from the top of my oval to the bottom and then let go, making the gradient effect go vertically.
To practice adjusting the opacity, I drew several ovals using different sizes and made them overlap each other. I filled them all the same red colour, but adjusted the opacity differently on every oval in order to make sure they looked nice and gave a nice effect. Some of them I only lowered a little bit, such as from 100% to 80%, but I decided to make some look more transparent and lowered the opacity to 40%. I did this by selecting the opacity bar just under the colour selector on the right hand side of the document. This sort of effect is useful because it creates a nice decoration and background for a poster.
In order to put an outline (stroke) on a shape I have drawn, I pressed 'edit' on the task bar at the top of the shape. I then selected the 'stroke' option, at which point the option came up for me to select the thickness of the outline. It was set at 10, so I changed it to 20. Outlining shapes can be useful because it adds definition to it, and makes it more closed off from other objects placed on the document.
It is possible to move the stroke away from the shape, which is actually very trendy at the moment among designers. By moving the outline slightly off the shape, it creates an abstract effect, giving the poster or piece of work a very arty feel to it. I could use this effect if I wanted to create a piece of work aimed towards my age group (teens) to make it look different and out of the ordinary.
In this image, I have drawn a rectangle using the rectangular option on the marquee tools. Again, it is possible to draw a perfect square by holding the shift key, but I wanted my shape to span across the bottom of the page. I have again used the gradient effect, this time making it fade from pink to red horizontally by drawing a horizontal line from right to left when using the gradient tool. This shape is a nice touch to add to a piece, as it just finishes off the look of a poster, and gives me somewhere that I could possibly put contact information.
In this screenshot, I have transformed and warped my rectangle to make it curved on one side. To transform the shape, I selected it using the magic wand tool on the left hand side of the tool bar, and pressed the shift key and the T key to be able to transform the shape. When I then right clicked on the shape, a list of options appeared, and I selected the option 'warp'. A grid appeared around the shape, and to curve it inwards I clicked an dragged the centre of the top line on my shape. I then de - selected it.
This creates a nice finishing effect on the sheet, and is seen used on lots of big posters and advertisements.
The marquee tool is used to make shapes and objects on layers. There are different settings you can use, such as the rectangular or elliptical tool. The elliptical tool is used to create rounded shapes, like circles and ovals. To draw a perfect circle, its important to hold the shift key whilst drawing the shape. I used the elliptical tool freehand to practice drawing this oval, and used the fill tool to colour the oval red. I selected the colour by picking a shade via the colour selection tool on the right hand side of the program. Once I had finished moving my shape, I pressed the shift key and then D to de - select it.
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