Adding Dimension and Lighting in Photoshop

The pattern we’ve just created is attractive enough, but it’s flat. Unless you’re comfortable using a dedicated 3D program, adding realistic lighting and texture can be a challenge. Although you might try by using the Warp feature in Photoshop (Edit > Transform > Warp), you’ll quickly see that using this feature isn’t nearly as effective as employing a displacement map, which is what you’re about to learn. You’ll also learn how to leverage two new features in Photoshop CS3 that allow making changes to the curtain that uses the pattern you created in the previous section, even after you’ve saved and closed your file.

Working Smart with Smart Objects

Years ago, Adobe GoLive (then the Adobe flagship web-authoring tool) introduced a new feature called Smart Objects. It worked like this: from inside GoLive, a designer would place native Photoshop, Illustrator, or Acrobat files.