Gold jewelry design  

In this tutorial I will show you how to create realistic gold jewelry design.

Step 1

Before running Photoshop, download free gem brushes from here.
Place *.abr file to Program Files\Adobe\Adobe Photoshop X\Presets\Brushes where X is the version number of your Photoshop.

Now run Photoshop and create a new document. If you’re planning to make many fine details then it’s easier to work with the large document size. I begin with 2000 px at the long side of the image.

Step 2

First we’re going to create some basic elements. Find an ornament that you like or create your own for the gold chain. I’ve found a small lineart image of the swan for the pendant and transformed it to look stylized and impressive. Then I made outlines with with Pen Tool set to the Paths mode.
Ctrl+D to reset swatches. Then for each unique element create new layer and press “Fill path with foreground color” at the bottom of the Paths palette.

Step 3

I create helping lines for the chain with Pen Tool.

Step 4

Now take the chain element, duplicate it and place along the helping line until the chain half won’t be finished. Ctrl+J to duplicate layer, Ctrl+T to call Free Transform box in order to move and rotate a chain element. I am doing this manually because I have a limited number of such units.
If you have many of them, a hundred for example, it would be more efficient to create an action, that will duplicate, move and rotate each element automatically.

Step 5

Merge the chain units to one layer, press Ctrl+T and add some perspective to the chain. Hold Ctrl when you want to move box point independently.

Step 6

Duplicate the chain half and mirror it (Edit - Transform - Flip Horisontal). Note that I added a little ring that connects the chain and the swan, and erased the leaves on the bottom unit so they won’t mix with the leves on the other half. The helping lines were deleted too.

Step 7

Merge the layers with chain and swan in order to get one black silhouette. Ctrl+click on this layer to load selection.
Open Channels palette and click “Create new channel” at the bottom of the palette. Ctrl+Backspace to fill the selection with white.

Step 8

Duplicate new alpha channel and name it “Alpha 2″. Go to Filter-Blur-Gaussian Blur and add a little blur. Duplicate new alpha channel and name it “Alpha 3″.

Step 9

Select Move Tool. Move Alpha 2 with keyboard keys one time up and one time left. Move Alpha 3 to the right and down in the same way.

Go to Image - Calculations and enter the values like on the picture below. A new channel called “Alpha 4″ will appear.

Step 10

Select Alpha 4 and press Ctrl+I to invert it. Go to Image - Adjustments - Curves and paint a curve like on the following picture.

Step 11

Ctrl+Click on Alpha 1. Choose Select - Modify - Expand and enter the value of 1 px. With the active selection, go to Alpha 4 and press Ctrl+C. Return to RGB mode.
Create new layer and press Ctrl+V. Ctrl+U to add color to the pendant. Do not add color if you want a silver jewel.

Step 12

Ctrl+click on the layer. Go to Select - Modify - Contract and enter the value between 5 and 10 px (I used 8 px). Right mouse click on the selection and select “Layer via copy”. Double click on the new layer and apply the following layer style. It will add some volume to the pendant. Reduce the layer opacity to 70%.

Step 13

I made some lines for the wing, feathers and eye with Pen Tool basing on the original lineart image of swan.

Step 14

Create new layer, set brush to Hard Round 5px #A88E4C and click “Stroke path with brush” at the bottom of the Layers palette.
Double click on the layer and apply the following layer style.

Step 15

There are some intersections between the inner lines and outlines appeared. It’s easy to fix by erasing the excess inner lines’ endings.

Step 16

Create new document with white background and paint three solitary gems on the new layer: blue for eye, red for bill and yellowish white for decoration (in the last case the brush color will be almost black with little yellow tint). Duplicate this layer and set its blending mode to Multiply, Opacity to 70%.
Now you need to cut out the white base for gems with Pen Tool. It is needed because we need non-transparent gems but the brushes are transparent. Merge down all three layers to get gems that are ready for use.

Step 17

Now just copy, resize and transform gems with Free Transform until you like the result.
You may meet a problem with the beak because there is no beak-formed jewel. Go to Filter - Liquify… and use Forward Warp Tool with a small Brush Pressure value to achieve the desired form of jewel.

Step 18

The pendant looks lonely with the empty background. Let’s add silk cloth here.
I took the photo of silk from http://www.sxc.hu/photo/963912.

Step 19

Remember, there was a black silhouette? Hope you didn’t delete it It will be the shadow.
Place the shadow between the pendant and the silk and move it so it can be seen. Switch layer blending mode to Overlay and set Opacity to 70%.

Step 20

Let’s displace the shadow in accordance with the cloth to make it more natural.
Copy the cloth to a new document, press Shift+Ctrl+U to desaturate it and apply about 30 px Gaussian Blur to remove it’s texture. Save this file as “displacement map.psd”.

Step 21

Apply Filter - Distort - Displace to the shadow.

Step 22

At the end I decided to add some glossiness. In order to this, I duplicated the layer that adds volume to the pendant, set its Opacity to 60% and layer blending mode to Screen and applied the following layer style.

Final

That’s it. You can imitate different precious metals with this technique just by changing color and playing with blending modes. The only limitation in this jeweler’s art is your imagination.
Thanks for reading.