Step 1)  Getting ready

• Choose your paper piece and ribbon and place them in the same document so you can work with them.  You can do this by either using copy and paste, or by dragging and dropping them into one document.


• I have already applied a drop shadow to my paper piece and strip of ribbon.  There are some benefits to doing this now, but you can always do it later if you’d rather.  Either way, the ribbon shadow should be very small and shallow, otherwise your ribbon will look like it is floating rather than wrapped around the paper.

Step 2) Make a manageable ribbon piece

If your ribbon is quite long, much longer than you need, you will want to trim it to a more manageable length. This step may not be necessary if your ribbon length is already manageable.

• Choose the Rectangular Marquee tool in the Tool bar to the left.  In the Options bar above, make sure the feathering is set to 0 px and the Mode is Normal.


• In the Layers Palette, make sure the ribbon layer is the active layer.


• Draw a selection around a piece of the ribbon.  You want your selection to extend beyond the edges of the paper piece by about an inch or two.

• Press Ctr J (Mac: Cmd J) to duplicate the selected piece of ribbon and put it on its own layer.


• Hide the original longer piece of ribbon by clicking on the eye to the left of that layer in the Layers Palette.  Why not delete it?  Until I’m done, there’s always the chance that I might mess up and need that original ribbon piece to start over with.

Step 3) Arrange the ribbon

• Choose the Move tool at the top of the Tool Bar to the left.


• Click on the ribbon piece and move it to where you want it.  Press Ctr T (Mac: Cmd T) to rotate the ribbon if you desire.  Make sure that both sides of your ribbon piece extend beyond the edge of the paper piece.  Double-click on the ribbon to accept the transform.

Step 4) Delete excess ribbon

• Hold Ctr (Mac: Cmd) and click on the thumbnail of the paper piece layer to put a selection around it.


• Choose Select>Modify>Expand from the Menu bar.  Enter a value of between 5 and 8 pixels in the dialog box that appears.  (I chose 6 px.)  Click OK.


• Choose Select>Feather from the Menu bar.  Enter a value of 2 pixels.  Click OK.


• Choose Select>Inverse from the Menu bar.


• Make sure the ribbon piece layer is active in the Layers palette, then press Backspace.  This should delete the excess ribbon from both sides of the paper piece. 


• Press Ctr D (Mac: Cmd D) to deselect.

Step 5) Soften the corners

Your ribbon should look pretty good at this point.  But one additional thing I usually do is soften the corners a bit, especially if the ribbon has been rotated very much.  Let’s zoom in close to one end of the ribbon and take a look.

• Choose the Eraser tool in the Tool bar.  We’ll use the normal settings in the Options bar of Mode: Brush, and Opacity: 100%.


• Choose a soft brush tip, around 10 pixels.

• Zoom in close to one end of the ribbon.  Erase just the sharp edge of each corner.


• Repeat for the other end of the ribbon.