theKeeper
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Long title huh?! 
Just wanted to make sure the effect was understood.
Oh before we start i just want to also say that even though these steps appear longish... it's only because of the steps explaining how to create a custom brush. The overall effect itself takes only minutes to create once you have a brush made for it.
Here we go...
First off... scroll down below and checkout all the sample images. Get them in your head so you don't have to keep going up'n'down the whole time.
STEP 1
The Ring Brush
New document: width=350px height=500px.
White bg, default dpi (for our purpose here anyway).
New Layer.
Grab the the Pen tool (P). When choosing the Pen tool make sure the 'mode/function' is set to 'Path'. On the options bar for the tool look to the extreme left end. There are 3 small icons. The middle one is the one you need to have selected for our purposes. Click once on the canvas, on the left side. When you click though, hold the mouse down for a second and drag it to the right slightly. When you see some bezier control handles appear, stop dragging and release the mouse. Now click a short distance away (about 1" on screen), to the right and this will produce a line Path.
Hold down the ALT/Opt key now and click on either of the end points. When the control handles appear, drag the top ones slightly up and outward, away from each other. This will create a slight arc in our path; which will give our binding a slight bit of prespective depth. (see example below)
STEP 2 (see example image)
Ok now switch to the brush tool and choose a 3px hard brush. This brush size is completely dependant on the thickness you want your binding coils to be. But there's a way to make them thicker later if you want, so let's just use a small brush for now.
Hit D to reset your swatches; black over white.
Now reselect the Pen tool, then right-click (Cmd-click) on the canvas and choose Stroke Path from the menu. Then click OK to accept the next dialogue window settings.
Once your path is stroked, pess Ctrl/Cmd+H to hide the path.
STEP 3 (see example image)
Press Ctrl+T now.
Hold down the ctrl & shift key's while dragging the right middle transform handle upward slightly; to create a skewed effect. Use as much or as little of this as you like. It's a personal preference, not an essential step.
Once you've done that, Define the line as a brush; under the EDIT menu. Name it whatever you want.
STEP 4 (see example image)
The Rings
Grab the brush tool now, and switch to the brush you just made.
Open the options for the brush. In PS7 and up. click the "Brush Tip Shapes" tab, and change the Spacing setting to 75%. This setting is a preference also. But to make things work properly here, use that number for now.
When you're ready, hold the shift key down and click-and-drag the brush from the top to the bottom of your canvas. This moves the brush in a straight vertical line.
We're going to assume that you either know how to make paper, or you already have your paper made. In that case then we'll need some holes for our binding to run through. The holes and the binding, once done, can be ported over to your working paper document if you like. Or better yet, when you're comfortable with the steps and your brush is made, just create the rings/holes within your paper document to save time/space.
STEP 5 (see example image)
The Paper Holes
Add a new layer and drag it below the rings layer.
Change your brush to a round hard 15px size.
On the new layer below the ring layer, click the brush on top of each end of each ring; to create our paper holes. Use black for this.
Don't worry about it being too perfect. We can afford a little off-centeredness here.
FYI: The reason we do this part manually is because it would take longer to workout the proper spacing for our hole brush to match our rings, than it does just doing it manually. But feel free to try it. I did, and found that a spacing of 236% worked perfectly with my 15px brush.
Once you have your holes are made, duplicate the layer (ctrl/cmd+J).
On your original holes layer press Ctrl/Cmd+I to invert the hole colour to white. Then press Ctrl/Cmd+G to group the duplicate layer to the original one below it. Now activate your duplicate layer. Ctrl/Cmd-click on the layer to select the dots. Then choose any selection tool and tap your arrow keys down and right 3 times each. Press delete, then Deselect. Apply a 1.5px Gaussian Blur to what's left of the dots. Now duplicate this layer, press Ctrl/Cmd+G, then use the MOVE tool and arrow keys and nudge this layer down and right another 2-3 pixels.
Activate your white dot (hole) layer. Then press ctrl/cmd+L to open Levels, and drag the white Output slider to the left until your white dots become grey.
NOTE: Those using PS6 and up can use just one layer for the holes if you want. Make them white, and apply the "Inner Shadow" filter to them from; the layer effects filters. Just make the shadow 'size' large enough to hide all the white of the dots. But don't make the holes completely black.
The last thing we can do is to add a shadow cast for the rings. This really helps create a sense of depth to the rings. And it's easier than one might think too.
Duplicate the ring layer, and move this duplicate below the original. Now flip this layer both vertically and horizontally (or rotate 180 degrees). Choose the MOVE tool and either manually or with the arrow keys, move this layer into position so there's an upside down ring below each ring. Reset your swatches to black over white. Then press Alt/Opt+Shift+Delete to fill these rings with black. Apply a 1.5 Gaussian Blur to the shadow layer, and reduce the Opacity to around 10-25%. Your choice there.
To add some shine to your rings, duplicate the ring layer again, press ctrl/cmd+G to group, fill the duped rings with white, use the MOVE tool and arrow keys to nudge this layer up a few pixels until you get a split light and dark looking effect. And/or you can also do what i did and fill the original rings with a multi-level greyscale gradient (try the silver 'metal' preset from the default gradients library).
And last but not least, we'll add that extra bit of thickness i mentioned at the start. Duplicate the main ring layer. Because your layer is grouped, the duplicate gets added right below the original. Click on that layer to activate it. Now press Alt/Opt+Shift+Delete to fill these rings with black. Choose the MOVE tool and with the arrow keys nudge this layer down a 2 pixels.
Ok well... that's about it then for this effect.
Any questions let me know. :B
Just wanted to make sure the effect was understood.
Oh before we start i just want to also say that even though these steps appear longish... it's only because of the steps explaining how to create a custom brush. The overall effect itself takes only minutes to create once you have a brush made for it.
Here we go...
First off... scroll down below and checkout all the sample images. Get them in your head so you don't have to keep going up'n'down the whole time.
STEP 1
The Ring Brush
New document: width=350px height=500px.
White bg, default dpi (for our purpose here anyway).
New Layer.
Grab the the Pen tool (P). When choosing the Pen tool make sure the 'mode/function' is set to 'Path'. On the options bar for the tool look to the extreme left end. There are 3 small icons. The middle one is the one you need to have selected for our purposes. Click once on the canvas, on the left side. When you click though, hold the mouse down for a second and drag it to the right slightly. When you see some bezier control handles appear, stop dragging and release the mouse. Now click a short distance away (about 1" on screen), to the right and this will produce a line Path.
Hold down the ALT/Opt key now and click on either of the end points. When the control handles appear, drag the top ones slightly up and outward, away from each other. This will create a slight arc in our path; which will give our binding a slight bit of prespective depth. (see example below)
STEP 2 (see example image)
Ok now switch to the brush tool and choose a 3px hard brush. This brush size is completely dependant on the thickness you want your binding coils to be. But there's a way to make them thicker later if you want, so let's just use a small brush for now.
Hit D to reset your swatches; black over white.
Now reselect the Pen tool, then right-click (Cmd-click) on the canvas and choose Stroke Path from the menu. Then click OK to accept the next dialogue window settings.
Once your path is stroked, pess Ctrl/Cmd+H to hide the path.
STEP 3 (see example image)
Press Ctrl+T now.
Hold down the ctrl & shift key's while dragging the right middle transform handle upward slightly; to create a skewed effect. Use as much or as little of this as you like. It's a personal preference, not an essential step.
Once you've done that, Define the line as a brush; under the EDIT menu. Name it whatever you want.
STEP 4 (see example image)
The Rings
Grab the brush tool now, and switch to the brush you just made.
Open the options for the brush. In PS7 and up. click the "Brush Tip Shapes" tab, and change the Spacing setting to 75%. This setting is a preference also. But to make things work properly here, use that number for now.
When you're ready, hold the shift key down and click-and-drag the brush from the top to the bottom of your canvas. This moves the brush in a straight vertical line.
We're going to assume that you either know how to make paper, or you already have your paper made. In that case then we'll need some holes for our binding to run through. The holes and the binding, once done, can be ported over to your working paper document if you like. Or better yet, when you're comfortable with the steps and your brush is made, just create the rings/holes within your paper document to save time/space.
STEP 5 (see example image)
The Paper Holes
Add a new layer and drag it below the rings layer.
Change your brush to a round hard 15px size.
On the new layer below the ring layer, click the brush on top of each end of each ring; to create our paper holes. Use black for this.
Don't worry about it being too perfect. We can afford a little off-centeredness here.
FYI: The reason we do this part manually is because it would take longer to workout the proper spacing for our hole brush to match our rings, than it does just doing it manually. But feel free to try it. I did, and found that a spacing of 236% worked perfectly with my 15px brush.
Once you have your holes are made, duplicate the layer (ctrl/cmd+J).
On your original holes layer press Ctrl/Cmd+I to invert the hole colour to white. Then press Ctrl/Cmd+G to group the duplicate layer to the original one below it. Now activate your duplicate layer. Ctrl/Cmd-click on the layer to select the dots. Then choose any selection tool and tap your arrow keys down and right 3 times each. Press delete, then Deselect. Apply a 1.5px Gaussian Blur to what's left of the dots. Now duplicate this layer, press Ctrl/Cmd+G, then use the MOVE tool and arrow keys and nudge this layer down and right another 2-3 pixels.
Activate your white dot (hole) layer. Then press ctrl/cmd+L to open Levels, and drag the white Output slider to the left until your white dots become grey.
NOTE: Those using PS6 and up can use just one layer for the holes if you want. Make them white, and apply the "Inner Shadow" filter to them from; the layer effects filters. Just make the shadow 'size' large enough to hide all the white of the dots. But don't make the holes completely black.
The last thing we can do is to add a shadow cast for the rings. This really helps create a sense of depth to the rings. And it's easier than one might think too.
Duplicate the ring layer, and move this duplicate below the original. Now flip this layer both vertically and horizontally (or rotate 180 degrees). Choose the MOVE tool and either manually or with the arrow keys, move this layer into position so there's an upside down ring below each ring. Reset your swatches to black over white. Then press Alt/Opt+Shift+Delete to fill these rings with black. Apply a 1.5 Gaussian Blur to the shadow layer, and reduce the Opacity to around 10-25%. Your choice there.
To add some shine to your rings, duplicate the ring layer again, press ctrl/cmd+G to group, fill the duped rings with white, use the MOVE tool and arrow keys to nudge this layer up a few pixels until you get a split light and dark looking effect. And/or you can also do what i did and fill the original rings with a multi-level greyscale gradient (try the silver 'metal' preset from the default gradients library).
And last but not least, we'll add that extra bit of thickness i mentioned at the start. Duplicate the main ring layer. Because your layer is grouped, the duplicate gets added right below the original. Click on that layer to activate it. Now press Alt/Opt+Shift+Delete to fill these rings with black. Choose the MOVE tool and with the arrow keys nudge this layer down a 2 pixels.
Ok well... that's about it then for this effect.
Any questions let me know. :B