Tutorial — Letters made of leaves.

This collection of high-resolution leaves was used to create this composition:

1. Create a new document in Photoshop. I would suggest to make file high resolution even if you need it for web quality. Just in case if your client (boss) would ask you to create the same for print ad.

This document is 8.5 x 5.2 inches (it's almost half of letter size) at 300 dpi. Choose typing tool and type the word you want. Use bold font, for example Swiss 721 BT Black Condensed.

2. Open photoshop file leaves_1.psd or leaves_2.psd from the Leaves Collection where all the images of leaves are cut from background and ready to use.

3. Check box "Auto Select Layer" for the Move Tool (V). It will help you to select layers faster just with one click.

4. Start composing the letters from leaves by dragging and dropping images of leaves.

5. The leaves are very high-resolution. Scale them, click "Command + T" (Ctrl + T).

6. Continue to drag and drop new images of leaves. Scale them, rotate and place them covering letters by perimeter.

7. There are 21 images of leaves in the Collection that you can use for composing the letters. When you have all images of leaves placed in your document, you can close the leaves_1.psd and leaves_2.psd files. Now you can simply duplicate layers either by clicking "Command + J" (Ctrl + J) or keep pushed down "Option" (Alt) key while moving leaf layer.

Group the layers of leaves together in one folder.

8. Continue to cover the letter with leaves.

9. Sometime the petioles are coming out and it doesn't look nice. Simply use Mask layer to hide it or erase them.

10. You can use same leaves that you used to compose first letter. Duplicate leaves and group them in the individual folders for each letter.

11. Continue composing letter by letter.

12. It's getting better...

13. ... and better...

14. ...even more better...

15. And finally the beautiful colorful word appears. It takes about 15 minutes per letter to make this composition.

16. You can color background in any color or place a photo behind the letters. You can use the same idea of placing the leaves and create other designs, for ex. frames for photographs, background images with flying leaves, etc...