| 1. Select two colors you
think will work nicely together. I am using a lighter blue, and a darker
blue, but its up to you what colors to choose.
2. Now open a new image
400w by 150h. Set the open new image screen to use the background color as
the base for your new image. Or you can choose to have it transparent if
you want to create a gif, but in this tutorial I will create a banner/button.
3. Click the toggle arrow
beside your color swatches so the background color is now the foreground
color.
4. Now click on the text
tool.  It will open
this screen. Choose what you want your banner to say, and type it in the
box. Choose floating and antialias. Click standard text, and click
OK. (Clicking on Standard text makes the text one solid color instead of a
color with an outline, or a texture.)
Once you have entered the text
and clicked OK, you will notice now that your words have 'marching ants' around
the text. If you don't have these, please go back and make sure you had
the floating box checked when you entered your text.
5. Now that we have our
text in place with the marching ants, we want to add the first part of our cut
out. Go to effects/3D effects/Cutout. 
You will get the following screen appear. Use the following settings, and
click OK.
6. Now that you have
text that looks like its got a dark inside shadow, we need to add the lighter
side. Go to effects/3D effects/drop shadow,
and use the settings below. (*Note: Personally, I find using anything
greater then 1 for blur on the white, looses the effect of the cutout.
Unless you are using a very large base to do the cutout on.*)
7. Go to selections/select
none.
You should now have an image
that looks something like this, only with your own text.
Now there are lots of things
you could use this same effect on, for instance, you could take the above and
make a nice little button or banner by applying the buttonize filter to
it. Looking like this...
Or you could use what you have
learned here on things like dingbats, and corners, etc. Its really up to
you. Have fun, hope you enjoyed this tutorial. :O)
Here are some examples of stuff
done using the same settings used in this tutorial.
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