Create an original and useful St. Valentine’s Day background in Adobe Photoshop from your media library in just a few steps, to increase your sales as the next holiday fast approaches.

The end-of-year holiday season is now past. The Christmas music was in stores for weeks, and you have gained a few holiday pounds. Everyone (business owners included) can tend to get caught up in the hustle and bustle of the season. Don’t get stuck in the after-holiday-sales-slump! Look ahead and start planning for the next big spending holiday for promotional and gift items. St. Valentine’s Day is right after Christmas and Halloween for sales and should be for you. Here are some steps to a ‘loveable’ design that can be applied to many product offerings—from custom home décor items to the perfect proposal puzzle (a unique way to pop the big question)!

The original paper file was changed to red using the Hue and Saturation functions. Don’t draw a heart by hand using the pen tool. The Custom Shape tool palette comes with a heart shape.

The main elements for this design are an old style paper background or texture, and a rectangle bar topped with a bit of heart. The vintage paper file that is used in this tutorial can be obtained through a number of stock photo sites (fairly cost effective) or make a custom page by scanning a non-lined sheet of paper that has been stained with coffee or tea. Let’s get started by changing the paper background to a color that’s more appropriate for St. Valentine’s Day.

With the paper background file open in Adobe Photoshop, from the top main menu bar, select Image Adjustment > Hue/Saturation. In the new pop-up window, click on the drop-down menu to change the listing from Mast to Reds. Adjust the sliders by moving the Hue all the way over to the left, for a pink tint. Then the Saturation value will be shifted all the way over to the right. One last adjustment under the Reds section: move the slider for the Lightness value to the left, darkening the image.

Next change the drop-down menu back to Master for a little more color adjustment. Don’t adjust the Hue value but do move the Saturation value to 100% (all the way to the right). The last step in this section is to darken the color a bit more by adjusting the Lightness amount to show a reading of -58. Now the original paper scan is a deep red—perfect for a Valentine’s Day background that can be applied to an array of products, from photo gift picture frames to décor items like cork-back coasters or serving trays.

Now let’s add a design element such as a thick horizontal bar. Two bar options are shown in the design visual samples with this article. One is a bar selected from the original paper background, and the second is a solid black bar of the same thickness. First, create a new layer in the layer palette menu. By putting items on separate layers, you give yourself much more flexibility and may even keep away a headache or two. Choose the Rectangle Marquee Selection Tool to draw your rectangle. The Feather Radius (shown in the now visible top menu bar) should show a value of 0. A higher feather pixel amount will create a soft edge, while a lower number will create a straight line.

Click on the left side and drag across the design area, creating the thickness and length at the same time. With the rectangle area now showing as an active selection, select the paint bucket tool and click inside the rectangle to fill the bar with the foreground color. Deselect the area by pushing Ctrl/Cmd + D, or Select from the top menu bar options and scroll down to Deselect. The rectangle can be further adjusted by using the transform tool, Ctrl/Cmd+T. Click on one of the corner nodes (the small squares that are now visible) to change the width or length of the bar.

With the heart path as an active selection, a purple hue has been used to fill in the color. By keeping all of the elements on individual layers, you’ll find it much easier to make adjustments to the design.

To have a bar that is created from the original paper background, use the same Rectangle Marquee tool to create a selection on the original paper file. Next, select Ctrl+C (Command if on a Mac) then go to your new design that is in process and push Ctrl+V (the quick key command for Paste) or choose Select > Paste from the top menu bar. The length and width can be edited in the same manner as the black bar, through the Transform tool. A simple but nice visual element has now been added to the overall design. This can act as a great spot for a ‘heartfelt’ quote.

To draw the heart, select the custom shape tool from the main menu bar. Before you ‘draw’ a heart, confirm the ‘Paths’ tool is selected and not the ‘Shape’ tool. The ‘Paths’ tool is the second from the far left in the top menu bar when the Shape tool is selected; it looks like a small pen tool icon within a box. By drawing the heart as a path shape, it allows for easier manipulation in the future. To color in the heart, have the Path window open.

If it’s not already visible, select Window from the top menu bar and Paths. Click on the heart shape in the Path palette. From the drop down menu (found under the small icon in the top right of the Path palette), choose Make Selection. Use a low selection pixel amount such as 2 or even 0 under the Rendering box window that has now popped up. With the heart shape as an active selection (the lines appear to be moving like marching ants), click back on the Layers window to create a new layer. You’ll want to color in the heart on an individual layer to be able to easily edit.

Now choose your paint bucket tool from the main tool bar (typically on the left side of the screen) and click with the paint bucket tool inside the active selection shaped heart. The color will automatically be the current foreground color. You can change the color to fill in the heart shape by clicking on the foreground color box at the bottom of the main tools menu bar. This will open up the Color Picker palette, and a new hue can be chosen for the heart fill. Now the design should include a heart, a background and a colored or textured bar.

Find a quote on the St. Valentine’s Day holiday or love, and the design is ready to be applied to products or further personalized for customers.

Now that we’ve made this, what can we do with it? Add some type to note the year and holiday, Google a Valentine or romantic quote to add to the design, or add in a customer-supplied photo for a loveable photo gift. A company logo would work well with this design and can be applied to promotional items such as a key tag, button or magnet for a floral shop, candy store or a Singles mixer event at a local venue.

Need a little bit more help to get started on your St. Valentine’s Day sales and product designs? Visit http://www.unisub.com/worldof/FreeTargetSales/wos_mkt-valentines.html for a free marketing campaign and four free designs to use on sublimatable products for your customers.

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