Blueprint Redline Text Template

When a drawing went through the ferro-prussiate bath, the paper turned Prussian blue and the lines were left as bare white. Red pencil came after, straight over the print, for everything the draftsman had missed. That's what we built our text treatment on: one Smart Object prints white, the other prints red, and the sheet under both is already blue.

Details:

• high-quality PSD file, 4500 x 3000 px at 300 dpi;
• two Smart Objects, one for the printed drawing and one for the red notes;
• white group on Soft Light, red group on Screen, over a blue paper layer;
• Grain and Dust overlays with their own opacity, plus a Levels layer above them;
• live text layer set in Adobe Handwriting Ernie, available through Adobe Fonts.

The line is where the ink is not

A blueprint is a negative, and the white line is simply the place the blue never reached. The paper layer is a real blue sheet, and the drawing group is set to Soft Light, so the line comes out as a pale cyan near #30b6f8 instead of flat white. That group holds four copies of your artwork, every one a couple of percent wider than the one below it, all concentric. They give the drawing a halo that spreads outward, like a wet print bleeding into the paper around it.

One object draws, the other annotates

Edit Contents has two layers, 1 and 2, both at zero opacity. Layer 1 is the printed drawing, and a single edit to it updates all four white copies. Layer 2 is the handwriting, and a single edit updates all five red ones. Layer 2 also has a live text layer in Adobe Handwriting Ernie at 150 pt and an empty layer for your own graphics; layer 1 has the empty layer and no text. The sample drawing is a title block with revision rows, scale, date, and part number, and a logo or a schematic drops into it the same way a word does.

Dust, grain, and two Levels

The red group has its own Levels and Curves above the five copies, and they decide how hot the ink is against the blue. Above the whole effect, there are two texture overlays, Grain on Linear Light at 35% and Dust on Overlay, with one more Levels on top of the pair. The five red copies have different opacities and are concentric like the white ones, which keeps a soft second edge on the handwriting even where the strokes are thin.

Usage:

Engineering and architecture branding, technical zines, poster art, album covers, streetwear graphics, patent-style presentations, product teasers, workshop signage, editorial headers, and packaging for tool and hardware brands.

FAQ

This resource is created for Adobe Photoshop and works best with the latest Creative Cloud version for full Smart Object support.