February 5th, 2009 | No Comments »

Natural, Realistic Looking Use of Digital PaperClips

Ever wonder how to apply the paperclips so they look realistic? Especially pretty tough when using on say, a short piece of tag, or a ribbon – anywhere when the lower bit would show. And how about on a sheer ribbon or a piece of vellum paper?

Well, Ztampf! makes it easy for you. In most cases, I would provide the paper clips in 2 versions:
• Full Version, showing the entire clip.
• Clipped Version, showing how it would appear when ‘clipped’ to a paper/tag/picture with the ‘back’ section partially erased.

Now, to use a paper clip in the most common way, you would just drop the Clipped Version where you want it, align it well with the edge of the paper and you’re done! It even has the natural looking shadow where it should have! Convenient!

For other type of usage as described at the top, you would need to use both versions:
– Place both version on your file, each on its own layer.
– Align them well, so they would look like there is just 1 paper clip. Use the top as the base to align them precisely.
– Next, adjust the layers order: place the Full Version layer to be BEHIND/underneath the layer of paper/tag/picture to be clipped.
– Now, while making sure that they are still linked together, drag them to where you want the paper clip to be.
– Voila! See the result for yourself!

On the left is the common way of using just the ‘Clipped Version’. On the right made use of both versions to create a complete paper clip being clipped through a short material, with the bottom part of the paper clip peeks out.

The samples above were taken from these layouts below. Click the thumbnails to see them larger:

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Posted in Tips'n Tricks, Z!matter
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