Vanishing Point was one of the most interesting additions to Photoshop CS2 and with CS3 it has become even more powerful. It is an incredibly powerful feature that is also very easy to use. In this exercise we are going to map a decal on to the side of a building. It should take you no more than two minutes to do.

1. Choose an image to map your logo or words on to. Make sure that you rasterize the logo document. Now copy its contents.



2. Filter> Vanishing Point and use the Plane tool to create a basic grid. The image I have chosen is ideal for this purpose as you can clearly see all edges of the the shape. Hit the X key to temporarily zoom into the image. You are aiming for the grid to be blue in colour. If the grid is yellow this means that there could be problems ahead. If it is red then it's a no no.



3. Now paste in your logo/decal and move it until it snaps to the plane. Reposition the logo to your satisfaction. In Vanishing Point its always worthwhile turning on heal to see if it helps your cause. There are two choices: Luminance or on. In this example I have used the former.



4. Now it's time to experiment with Layer Blending modes. These can be found in the drop-down menu in the layers palette. This is the effect if I choose the Darken Mode.



5. Here is the same image with the Multiply mode selected.


6. In the end I have opted for the Colour Dodge mode and taken the Opacity down a little.



So ends the first in a series of Vanishing Point tutorials. In the next I'll be showing you how to create more complicated grids and map objects around corners.

Hello there, for today's long overdue exercise I'm going to be creating a dartboard. Why? Why not?



2. Here's watcha get:



3. Now tear off the Group Selection tool and the Scale tool. Move them close to the potential dart board for easy access. Use the Group Selection tool to select the second concentric circle. Then double-click on the Scale tool and take the uniform value down to 90%.



4. Now use the Group Selection tool to select the fourth concentric circle and double-click on the Scale tool to scale it down to 84%.



5. Repeat this process again. Choose the sixth concentric circle and scale it down to 29%.



6. Finally, scale the seventh concentric circle down again by 29%.



7. Now you need to rotate the entire dart board. Click away to deselect then select the dart board with the Selection tool. Select the Rotate tool and double-click it. Set the rotate value to 45º.



8. Now we need to colour the dart board. To do this I'm going to turn the dart board into a Live Paint object. Go to the Object> Live Paint> Make. Now select the Live Paint Bucket tool and then choose a black coloured swatch. Begin dragging as below:



9. Continue dragging to paint...



10. Don't worry if you make mistakes (like I have)...



11. Get yourself a red swatch and carefully colour in the doubles and trebles...



12. Now use a white swatch, like this:



13. Finally, get yourself a green swatch to complete your dose of Live Painting. I like this feature, it saves so much time.



14. Now zoom into the bullseye. Draw yourself a circle and colour it red. Align this circle to the centre of the artboard.



15. Now for some numbers. Fit the page to the window (Apple-0) and then use the Type tool to create the number 20. I've use Myriad Pro 29 pt, but you can obviously use whatever takes your fancy. Make sure the type is centrally aligned, then move it into position and align to the centre horizontally.



16. Select the Rotate tool and hold down the alt key and click in the centre of the dart board. Key in 18º for the value and hit Copy. Finally hit Apple-D 18 times to repeat this transformation.



17. You end up with a very high scoring dart board.



18. If you're not happy with this you'll have to do a little donkey work. Use the Type tool to manually change the numbers.



19. Still more drudgery. You're going to have to use the Rotate tool to manually straighten all the numbers. Just select each number one by one and double-click on the Rotate tool; use the up and down arrows to straighten the numbers, What a drag...

...Well done! You're there! You did well!