Using blends to create depth

It's important to know the possibilities offered by blends, gradients and masks for lighting your graphic compositions and adding depth of colour to detailed shapes within them.

And this tutorial will show you just what you can do with the tools available in Photoshop and Illustrator.

In this step-by-step we'll use blends in Illustrator to experiment with the fine details on a piece, adding very subtle lines, textures and tones - something that isn't always easy to do with vector shapes. We'll then import the image into Photoshop, taking advantage of Smart Objects, before creating custom shapes, adding layer effects and making colour adjustments.

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