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› › HOW TOStep Nine: Go to Edit>Puppet Warp
and c lick to place the first pin at the top
point where the ribbon meets the bal-
loon. Be sure the Mode is set to Distort
in the Options Bar and begin placing and
pulling pins to stretch the ribbon to have
the bottom curve meet the road on the
ground. Placed pins will lock those areas
from moving when adjusting other pins.
You can also Shift-c lick to select
multiple pins and move all the selected
pins at the same time; for example,
selecting all the three pins at the bottom
shown here makes it easier to move the
bottom section of the ribbon into place. If
you hold the Option (PC: Alt) key, you’ll
see a circle appear around the currently
active pin. Click-and-drag to rotate the
area around that pin. Using Puppet Warp
may take several tries and lots of patience.Step 10: After pressing Enter to com-
mit the Puppet Warp, add a Gaussian
Blur to the Ribbon layer using a Radius
of 0.3 pixels—just enough so the edge
isn’t pixelated. Click on the Add Layer
Mask icon (circle in a square) at the bot-
tom of the Layers panel to add a mask to
the Ribbon. Then switch to the Brush tool
(B), Select the Soft Round brush in Brush
Preset Picker in the Options Bar, set its
Hardness to 50%, and press X until black
is the Foreground color. Gently paint out
the excess area of the ribbon where it
meets the road so it looks as if it’s a natu-
ral extension of the original road.