Engrave a Zeppelin Stencil Set in Lopsy

The sheet has a big proof at top left, a column of two plates on the right, and a bottom row with a long plate and an index card. Everything sits 80 px in from the edges, with a 60 px gap between the parts.

1. Choose File → New, set Width 2400, Height 1800, Pixels, and click Create.
2. Click the top ruler to drop vertical guides at the proof's left and right edges (x 80 and 1520) and the plate column's left and right edges (1580 and 2320). Zoom in on each spot first so the click lands on the exact pixel, and watch X in the status bar.
3. Click the left ruler for the proof's top and bottom (y 80 and 1290) and the bottom row's top and bottom (1350 and 1720).

1. Click Background, set the foreground colour to #2B5446 and choose Edit → Fill.
2. Run Filter → Add Noise… with Amount 5 and Mono. A plain flat green looks like a screen, not a mat.
3. Click Layer 1 and rename it Mat Grid. Pick the Pencil (N), set Size 2 and colour #8DB3A2.
4. Click at the very top of the canvas at x 30, hold Shift and click at the very bottom. You get one straight vertical line.

You need 40 lines, 60 px apart. Drawing them one by one is slow. Instead, double them with a step-and-repeat:

1. Click Duplicate Layer at the bottom of the Layers panel. Press V for the Move tool and nudge the copy 60 px right with the arrow keys. Shift+arrow moves 10 px, and holding it down repeats, so long nudges are quick. Watch Layer X in the Info panel. Choose Layer → Merge Down. You now have two lines.
2. Do it again, but nudge 120 px. Now you have four. Keep doubling the nudge: 240, 480, 960, 1920. Six passes give 64 lines, more than enough for the width. The extra lines simply hang off the canvas.
3. Click Add Layer, draw one horizontal line across the full width at y 30 in the same way, and double it with nudges of 60, 120, 240, 480 and 960 px straight down.
4. Merge Down the horizontal lines onto Mat Grid and set the layer's opacity to 35%.

You'll use this step-and-repeat four more times: for the engraving lines, the red sun's lines, the stencil ties and the index card's rules.

An engraving printed on a press leaves a shallow dent the size of the metal plate. That's the plate mark.

1. Add a layer called Proof Paper. Pick the Rectangular Marquee (M) and drag from the top-left guide corner (80, 80) to where the 1520 and 1290 guides cross. The marquee snaps onto the guides.
2. Fill it with #EFE7D3, run Add Noise… at 3, Mono, and press Cmd+D.
3. Open the layer's effects drawer (the ✦ button on its row) and turn on Drop Shadow: Offset X 6, Offset Y 10, Blur 18, Opacity 45, colour #0A1A14.
4. Add a layer called Plate Mark. With nothing selected, click once on the canvas with the Rectangular Marquee without dragging. The Rectangular Selection dialog opens. Enter From 140, 140 and To 1460, 1000, and fill with #E7DEC7.
5. Give it an Inner Glow (Size 6, Opacity 45, colour #8A7650) and a pale Drop Shadow up and to the left (Offset -2, -2, Blur 2, Opacity 80, colour #FFFAF0). The dark inner edge and the light rim read as a dent. Press Cmd+D.

The picture lives inside the plate mark, from 170, 170 to 1430, 970, with the horizon at y 790. For now you paint it as plain greys. The grey decides how thick each engraved line will be later, so keep everything between mid grey and near white. Anything darker than about #888888 turns solid.

1. Add a layer called Tone. Use the marquee dialog to select 170, 170 to 1430, 790.
2. Pick the Gradient tool from the toolbox (it has no shortcut). Open the gradient editor and set the stops to #A8A8A8 and #DADADA. Drag from the top of the selection straight down to the horizon. The sky gets darker toward the top, the way engraved skies do.
3. Now a glow round the sun. Switch the gradient to Radial, set both stops to #F4F4F4, and drag the right-hand stop's opacity to 0. Drag from the sun's centre at 1180, 705 about 420 px to the right. Then press Cmd+D.

1. Add a layer called Clouds. Select 170, 170 to 1430, 730.
2. Run Filter → Clouds… with Scale 4, then Brightness/Contrast… with Contrast 25.
3. Run Motion Blur… with Angle 0 and Distance 90. Clouds in old engravings lie in long flat banks, and this stretches them sideways.
4. Press Cmd+D. In the layer's effects drawer (✦), set the blend mode to Overlay. Set the layer's opacity to 50%, then Merge Down onto Tone.

Clouds are random, so yours will look different from the screenshot. That's fine.

1. Pick the Elliptical Marquee and use its dialog to select 1080, 605 to 1280, 805, a 200 px circle. Fill with white. The sun belongs to the red plate, so the blue lines will be cleared out of it later.
2. Press Cmd+D and select the lake: 170, 790 to 1430, 970. Draw a linear gradient from #C4C4C4 at the horizon to #949494 at the bottom.
3. Press Cmd+D and select a narrow strip under the sun, from 1125, 790 to 1235, 960. Choose Select → Feather… at 35 and fill with #DCDCDC. That's the sun's reflection. With the edges feathered, it fades into the water.
4. Press Cmd+D.

Lake Constance has the Alps on its far shore.

1. Add a layer called Alps. With the Lasso (L), drag a jagged ridge across the full width of the picture. Keep the peaks between about y 560 and y 750, put the tallest ones left of centre, and leave a dip around x 1160, where the sun will set. Then drag straight down to the horizon, back along it, and up to your starting point.
2. Draw a three-stop linear gradient inside it from y 600 to the horizon: #CACACA, #B4B4B4 at 40%, and #9C9C9C.
3. Lasso a low wavy band of foothills along the bottom of the range, about 20 px tall, and fill it with #989898.
4. The sun is low on the right, so each peak's left-hand slope is in shade. For every peak, lasso a thin triangle: start at the valley to its left, go up to the summit, then straight down to the foothills, and back. Fill each one with #9A9A9A. Press Cmd+D.

1. Click Duplicate Layer, rename the copy Alps Cutter and hide it with its eye icon. You'll use its outline several times to cut things.
2. Click Alps and Merge Down onto Tone.
3. Select the picture area (170, 170 to 1430, 970), choose Select → Inverse and press Delete. This keeps the tone study inside the frame. Press Cmd+D.
4. Run Brightness/Contrast… on Tone with Brightness -2 and Contrast -20. This pulls the very brightest greys down a little. Without it, a light patch of cloud can come out with no lines at all.

1. With Tone selected, drag the downloaded photo from your desktop onto the canvas. It lands as a new layer at the top-left corner, already selected. Rename it Zeppelin Photo.
2. With the Move tool, hold Cmd and drag the bottom-right corner handle up and to the left. Cmd keeps the proportions. Stop when the Info panel's selection W reads about 1306, which is 68%.
3. Nudge it with the arrow keys until the photo's top-left corner is at 159, 177. The zeppelin now crosses the upper half of the picture, nose high on the right. Press Cmd+D.

The sky in this photo is almost as pale as the top of the hull, so the Magic Wand can't find the edge. Trace it instead.

1. Pick the Pen (P). Start with a plain click on the tip of the tail, so it stays a sharp corner.
2. Work along the top of the hull to the nose and back along the underside. Press at each point and drag a short way along the hull's direction, so the curve stays smooth. Place points closer together round the nose and the tail, where the outline bends most. Around 40 points is about right. Follow the outside edge of the hull and leave out the fins and the cars.
3. Finish by clicking the first point again. That closes the path.

1. Open the Paths panel and click Path to Selection, then Delete Path. The hull is now a marching-ants selection.
2. Pick the Lasso, hold Shift and drag round the upper tail fin. Shift adds to the selection. Do the same for the long horizontal fin, the lower fin, the passenger car under the nose and the three engine cars.

1. Choose Select → Inverse and press Delete. The sky, the field and the crowd disappear.
2. Press Cmd+D.

The real ship has BODENSEE painted near its nose. You'll add your own sharp red version later, so remove the photo's lettering now. If you left it, it would print as a blue smudge under the red.

1. Pick the Clone Stamp (S) and set Size 22.
2. Alt-click on the plain pale band of the hull about 170 px to the left of the lettering, at the same height on the hull. That's the source.
3. Paint three strokes along the lettering, following the hull's slope: one along the tops of the letters, one through the middle and one along the bottoms. The clean band is copied over the letters.
4. Paint out the small D1 marks on the tail fin and under the hull the same way.

1. Choose Filter → Desaturate.
2. Run Surface Blur… with Radius 8 and Threshold 25. It smooths the photo's grain but keeps the edges sharp. Without it, the underside comes out as a blotchy speckle instead of clean lines.
3. Run Brightness/Contrast… with Brightness 14 and Contrast -45. This keeps the darkest underside from going solid and leaves a few lines on the pale fins.
4. Rename the layer Zeppelin Tone.

1. Click Duplicate Layer on Zeppelin Tone, rename the copy Hull Cutter and hide it.
2. Click Zeppelin Tone and Merge Down onto Tone.
3. Add a layer called Ruling. With the Pencil at Size 2, set the foreground to black and draw one line right across the canvas at y 4.
4. Double it with the step-and-repeat, straight down this time: nudges of 8, 16, 32, 64, 128, 256, 512 and 1024 px. Eight passes give 256 lines, 8 px apart. This is your ruling machine.

Run Filter → Gaussian Blur… with Radius 4.

Here's why this works. Each line is now a soft hill of ink that fades out to nothing halfway to the next line. In Multiply the hills darken the grey picture underneath. Threshold then turns every pixel darker than one level black and everything else white, like a water level:

• Over dark grey, the hills already sit low, so more of each hill is below the level and prints as a thick line.
• Over pale grey, only the very centre of each hill dips below, so the line prints thin.
• A grey darker than about #888888 is below the level even between the hills, so it prints solid black.

Real engravers changed the angle of their lines for different parts of a picture. You'll make three more copies of the ruling.

1. Cross-ruling. Duplicate Ruling and rename the copy Cross Ruling. Press Cmd+A. With the Move tool, drag the rotation handle just outside the top-right corner to turn it about 35° clockwise. There's no angle readout, so judge it by eye. If you hold Cmd it snaps to 30°, which works just as well. Press Cmd+D, then nudge the layer 400 px left and 330 px up so it covers the whole picture.
2. Alps hatch. Duplicate Cross Ruling and rename it Alps Hatch. Cmd-click the Alps Cutter thumbnail, choose Select → Inverse and press Delete. Only the diagonal lines inside the mountains are left. Press Cmd+D.
3. Hull band. Click Ruling, Duplicate it and rename the copy Hull Ruling. Select a band from 640, 780 to 1760, 1020. That's about the length and height of the hull. Select → Inverse, Delete, press Cmd+D, then select the band again with the same numbers.
4. With the Move tool, click Mesh Warp in the options bar and set the grid to 5 × 5.

The lines on a cigar-shaped hull squeeze together toward the nose and the tail. Toward the top and bottom edges they crowd together too, because you see them at a slant. Recreate that with the grid. Number the five handles in each column 1 to 5 from the top. The middle handle (3) never moves.

1. Left and right columns: drag handles 1 and 5 about 85 px in toward the middle, and handles 2 and 4 about 35 px in. The ends of the band pinch to about a third of their height.
2. Second and fourth columns: drag handles 1 and 5 about 25 px in.
3. Middle column: drag handle 2 up about 20 px and handle 4 down about 20 px. The lines spread out through the middle of the hull.
4. Tick Preview to check, then click Apply.

Press each handle right on its dot. A drag that starts between handles moves the whole selection instead of warping it.

The zeppelin climbs to the right at about 8°.

1. Select the band again (640, 780 to 1760, 1020).
2. Drag the rotation handle at the top-right corner upward until the band runs parallel to the hull. Its right end should finish about 155 px higher than its left. Press Cmd+D.
3. With the Move tool, drag the band over the zeppelin. Then nudge it until its pinched ends meet the tail and nose and its middle runs along the hull's centre line.

1. Cmd-click the Hull Cutter thumbnail. Its outline becomes the selection.
2. With Hull Ruling active, choose Select → Inverse and press Delete. Press Cmd+D.

1. Click Ruling. Cmd-click the Hull Cutter thumbnail, then Shift+Cmd-click the Alps Cutter thumbnail to add the mountains. Press Delete, then Cmd+D. The sky's straight lines no longer run over the hull or the Alps.
2. On both Ruling and Cross Ruling, select the picture area (170, 170 to 1430, 970), choose Select → Inverse, press Delete and Cmd+D.
3. On Cross Ruling, select the sky (170, 170 to 1430, 790), then Alt+Cmd-click the Hull Cutter thumbnail to subtract the hull. Press Delete and Cmd+D. A clean ruled sky uses just one set of lines, so only the lake and the hull keep the cross-hatching.
4. In each layer's effects drawer, set Ruling, Hull Ruling, Cross Ruling and Alps Hatch to Multiply. Set Cross Ruling's opacity to 30% and Alps Hatch to 90%. At 30% the cross lines only reach the threshold where the picture is dark.

Check the Layers panel: the four ruling layers should sit directly above Tone, with the hidden cutters above them. Then:

1. Click Ruling and Merge Down.
2. Do the same for Hull Ruling, Cross Ruling and Alps Hatch, in that order. Each one lands on Tone.

1. Run Filter → Threshold… with Level 110 and click Apply.
2. Rename the layer Ink A.

Zoom to 100% and look. The sky lines swell where the clouds are darker and thin out near the sun. The hull lines curve and pinch toward the ends. The lake gets heavier toward the shore.

1. Pick the Magic Wand (W), untick Contiguous and set Tolerance 40. Click a white gap between two lines. Every white pixel in the layer is selected. Press Delete, then Cmd+D.
2. Select the sun's circle 1 px larger than before (1079, 604 to 1281, 806) so the soft rim goes too. Then Alt+Cmd-click the Alps Cutter thumbnail to subtract the mountains. Press Delete and Cmd+D. The sun is now clear for the red.
3. Add a layer called Contour above Ink A. Cmd-click Hull Cutter, fill with black, choose Select → Shrink… 2 and press Delete. You're left with a 2 px outline round the hull. Press Cmd+D and Merge Down onto Ink A.
4. A stencil can't hold a long thin slot without falling apart, so every line needs small ties, or bridges. Add a layer called Ties. With the Pencil at Size 2 in black, draw a short vertical tick from 30, 1 to 30, 7. It's 6 px tall, so it crosses exactly one ruled line (the one at y 4).
5. Step-and-repeat it sideways with nudges of 160, 320, 640 and 1280 px. That's one row of ties.
6. Now make the next rows start at different places, so the ties don't line up in columns. Duplicate, nudge 100 right and 8 down (one line lower), merge. Duplicate, nudge 40 right and 16 down, merge. Duplicate, nudge 20 right and 32 down, merge. You have eight rows, each shifted differently.
7. Step-and-repeat those eight rows straight down with nudges of 64, 128, 256, 512 and 1024. The ticks cover the whole sheet, but you'll hide them in a moment.

1. Cmd-click the Ties thumbnail, click Ink A and press Delete. Press Cmd+D and hide Ties.
2. Cmd-click the Ink A thumbnail and fill with Prussian blue #1E3B62. Press Cmd+D.
3. In its effects drawer, set Ink A to Multiply, so the paper shows through the ink like a real print.

The red plate gets its own small set of lines.

1. Click Ink A and add a layer called Ink B. Select the sun's circle (1080, 605 to 1280, 805) and draw a linear gradient from #E8E8E8 at the top of the circle to #8E8E8E at the bottom. Press Cmd+D.
2. Add a layer called Sun Ruling. Set the foreground back to black (it's still blue from the last fill). With the Pencil at Size 2, draw a line at y 604 from x 1060 to x 1300. Step-and-repeat it straight down with nudges of 8, 16, 32, 64 and 128.
3. Run Gaussian Blur… at 4, set the layer to Multiply and Merge Down onto Ink B.
4. Select the circle again, Select → Inverse, Delete, Cmd+D.
5. Run Threshold… at 110. With the Magic Wand (Contiguous still off), click a white gap and press Delete.
6. Cmd-click Alps Cutter, press Delete so the sun sinks behind the ridge, and press Cmd+D.

1. Still on Ink B, with the Pencil at Size 2 in black, draw short horizontal dashes in the pale column under the sun. Use Shift-click for each one. Start at y 800 with a dash about 130 px long, centred under the sun. Then draw ten more, 16 px apart, down to y 960. Make each a little shorter than the last, ending at about 20 px, and wobble them a few pixels left and right. Spaced 16 px apart, they fall between the blue lines.
2. Cmd-click Ties, click Ink B and press Delete, so the red has ties too. Press Cmd+D.

1. Pick the Text tool (T). Set Oswald, Medium, size 32, colour black, and Align Left.
2. Click on an empty patch of mat, away from any other text, and type BODENSEE. Press Tab to finish. Rename the layer Hull Name.
3. In the Text panel, set Letter spacing to 2.

1. Click Rasterize Layer at the bottom of the Layers panel.
2. Cmd-click its thumbnail, then drag the rotation handle up until the word's slope matches the hull's lower edge near the nose, about 6° anticlockwise. Press Cmd+D.
3. With the Move tool, place it on the pale band near the nose, where the photo's lettering was.
4. Cmd-click Hull Name, choose Select → Grow… 2, click Ink A and press Delete. This knocks the blue lines out from under the letters, so the red prints clean. Press Cmd+D.
5. Click Hull Name and Merge Down onto Ink B.

1. Cmd-click Ink B and fill with oxide red #B3452E. Press Cmd+D.
2. Set Ink B to Multiply.

Click Ink B before each new text, so the Text tool doesn't restyle the previous one. In the Text panel, set Letter spacing back to 0 before you type.

1. Title. Big Shoulders Stencil, ExtraBold, 136, #B3452E. Type BODENSEE and rename the layer Title. Set Letter spacing 30. With the Move tool, nudge it until it's centred on the paper: the middle of the word at x 800, about halfway between the plate mark and the bottom edge. Check the Layer X and width in the Info panel.
2. Caption. IM Fell English SC, 32, #1E3B62, letter spacing 2: LZ 120 · Luftschiffbau Zeppelin · Friedrichshafen · 1919. Rename it Caption and centre it the same way below the title. Leave at least 60 px of paper below it, a little more than at the sides.
3. Imprint lines. IM Fell English, Italic, 24, blue. Type Nach einer Photographie vom Oktober 1919 just under the plate mark, lined up with its left edge, and rename it Imprint Left. Type Schablonendruck in zwei Farben and nudge it until its right end lines up with the plate mark's right edge. Rename it Imprint Right. Old prints credit the source and the printer in exactly this spot.

1. Click Title and add a layer called Plate A Board. (Check that it lands above all the proof's layers.)
2. Use the marquee dialog to select 1580, 80 to 2320, 640. Fill with #C99E5E. Run Add Noise… at 8, Mono, then Motion Blur… at Angle 0, Distance 12 for a fibrous card. Press Cmd+D.
3. Add a Drop Shadow (Offset 4, 7, Blur 10, Opacity 42, colour #08130F) and an Inner Glow (Size 16, Opacity 40, colour #6B4A1E) for oily edges.
4. Punch two registration holes. With the Elliptical Marquee dialog, select 1604, 104 to 1624, 124, press Delete, then do the same at 2276, 104 to 2296, 124. Every plate gets holes in the same place, so they all line up on the same pins.

A contact sheet shows the plates small. Plates A and B are shown at half size.

1. Click Ink A, select the picture area (170, 170 to 1430, 970) and press Cmd+C.
2. Click Plate A Board and press Cmd+V. The copy is pasted in place, right above the board. Rename it Cut A and press Cmd+D.
3. Select the picture area again. With the Move tool, hold Cmd and drag the bottom-right handle up and left until the selection W in the Info panel reads 630, half size.
4. Drag it onto the board, then nudge it until its top-left corner sits at 1635, 150, 55 px in from the board's left edge. Press Cmd+D.

1. Cmd-click the Cut A thumbnail, click Plate A Board and press Delete. The lines are now holes in the board. The mat grid shows through them, and the drop shadow gives the cuts depth. Press Cmd+D.
2. Click Cut A, run Gaussian Blur… at 6 and rename it Overspray A. Sprayed paint always mists a little past the edges of the holes.
3. Pick the Spray tool (J) at Size 150, Density 25, Opacity 45%, in blue #1E3B62. Zigzag across the cut area four times.
4. Cmd-click Plate A Board, Select → Inverse, Delete, Cmd+D. This keeps the haze on the card, so the holes stay clean. Set the layer to 45%.
5. Label it: Text, Big Shoulders Stencil, Bold, 34, #4A3418, letter spacing 3. Type A · PRUSSIAN BLUE · KEY PLATE along the bottom-left of the board, starting 55 px in from the left like the art above. Rename it Label A.

Plate B is made exactly like plate A, one cell lower.

1. Click Label A and add a layer Plate B Board. Select 1580, 700 to 2320, 1260 and repeat steps 2 to 4 of Make the first stencil board: the fill, Noise and Motion Blur, both effects, and pin holes at 1604, 724 and 2276, 724 (20 px each).
2. Click Ink B, select the picture area and copy. Click Plate B Board and paste, rename the copy Cut B, and scale it to half size as before.
3. Nudge it to 1635, 770. That's the same spot in its cell as plate A's art, so the two plates register.
4. Cmd-click Cut B, click the board and Delete. Blur Cut B at 6 and rename it Overspray B. Spray the haze over it in oxide red #B3452E, trim it to the board, and set it to 45%.
5. Label it B · OXIDE RED · SUN & NAME, renamed Label B. Reset Letter spacing to 3 if needed.

Most of plate B is plain card. A plate only carries its own colour.

1. Click Label B and add Plate C Board from 80, 1350 to 1280, 1720, styled like the others, with pin holes 34 px in from its top corners.
2. Click Title, Duplicate it, and click Rasterize Layer. Cmd-click the copy and press Cmd+X. Delete the now-empty copy.
3. Click Plate C Board and press Cmd+V. The title is pasted in place above the board. Rename it Cut C, press Cmd+D, and drag it down into the middle of the board, a little above centre to leave room for the label.
4. Cmd-click Cut C, click Plate C Board, Delete, Cmd+D. Blur Cut C at 6, rename it Overspray C, spray red over the letters, trim it to the board and set it to 45%.
5. Label it C · OXIDE RED · TITLE and rename it Label C.

1. Click Label C and add a layer called Card. Select 1460, 1360 to 2220, 1710, fill with #F5F1E6, add Noise 3 Mono, and give it a Drop Shadow (Offset 4, 7, Blur 10, Opacity 45, colour #08130F).
2. Add a layer called Card Rules. With the Pencil at Size 2 in #9DB6CC, draw a line across the card at y 1462. Step-and-repeat it down with nudges of 36, 72 and 144. That gives seven rules on the card. The eighth falls off the bottom and gets trimmed.
3. In #D88A84, draw the red header rule at y 1422 and a vertical margin line at x 1532.
4. Select the card's rectangle again, Inverse, Delete, Cmd+D to trim the rules to the card.

1. With Card Rules selected, set Letter spacing to 0. Pick Text, Special Elite, 30, #B3452E and type STENCIL SET No. 3 — LZ 120, 1919 just above the red rule, starting right of the margin. Rename it Card Header.
2. Click Card Rules again. Switch to size 23 in #2B2A28, click below the red rule and type the notes, pressing Enter between lines:

• A Prussian blue — sky, ship, Alps, lake
• B Oxide red — sun, glint, painted name
• C Oxide red — title
• Spray A first; register B and C on the pins.
• A and B shown at 50 %, C at full size.

1. Rename it Card Notes. In the Text panel, set Line height to 1.565. At this size that's exactly 36 px, the same as the rules.
2. Nudge the block with the Move tool until the bottoms of the letters sit just on the blue rules, with descenders hanging through them.
3. For the ink tests, click Card Rules and add a layer Test Sprays. With the Spray tool at Size 60, Density 60, spray a small blue circle and a red one next to it near the bottom-right corner. Set the layer to Multiply.

1. Click Card in the Layers panel and Shift-click Card Header to select everything in between. Choose Layer → Group Layers and name the group Spec Card.
2. With the group active and nothing selected, drag the Move tool's rotation handle to turn it a degree or two clockwise. The right end of the card should drop about 25 px.

The text stays live text. It turns with the card and stays sharp.

1. Click Proof Paper, Shift-click Title, and choose Layer → Group Layers. Name the group Proof. Group each board with its overspray and label the same way, as Plate A, Plate B and Plate C.
2. With nothing selected, rotate Plate A about 1° anticlockwise (its right end rises about 13 px), Plate B about 1° clockwise, and Plate C just over half a degree anticlockwise.

Nothing on a real workbench lies perfectly square, and alternating the tilts keeps the sheet lively.

1. Click the hidden Alps Cutter (still a top-level layer, above the groups) and add a layer called Reg Marks. That way it stays out of the groups.
2. With the Pencil at Size 2 in black, draw a 48 px cross in each side margin of the proof, centred at 110, 570 and 1490, 570. Add a ring round each: select a 26 px circle on the centre, fill, Select → Shrink… 2, Delete, Cmd+D.
3. Duplicate the layer and rename it Reg Marks Red. Cmd-click its thumbnail, fill red, nudge it 2 px right and 1 down, and set it to Multiply. Then Cmd-click Reg Marks, fill it blue and set it to Multiply too. The slight mismatch is how real two-colour targets look.
4. Add a layer called Tape. Select 10, 70 to 190, 120, fill with #E4D6A6, add Noise 6. With the Move tool, turn it about 40° anticlockwise with the rotation handle so it crosses the proof's top-left corner. Press Cmd+D.

1. Cmd-click Tape, press Cmd+C then Cmd+V, and press Cmd+D.
2. Choose Image → Flip Horizontal to mirror the copy. It mirrors across the whole canvas, so the copy jumps to the far right edge. Drag it back over the proof's top-right corner, near 1520, 80.
3. Merge Down onto Tape. Add a light Drop Shadow (Offset 2, 3, Blur 4, Opacity 30, colour #2A2010) and set the layer to 82%.
4. Add a last layer called Grain. Press Cmd+A, fill with #808080, run Add Noise… at 30 Mono, set it to Overlay at 14% and press Cmd+D.
5. Group Ties, Hull Cutter and Alps Cutter as Cutters. The three layers inside stay hidden, but keep them: they're handy if you re-cut a plate later.

Hold Cmd and scroll over the zeppelin's nose to zoom to 100%. Check that:

• the hull lines curve and pinch toward the nose, and the red name sits on clean paper
• the sky lines thicken under the darker cloud bands and never vanish completely
• the Alps' diagonals meet the sun's red lines without a gap

Choose File → Save Project to keep the .lopsy with all its groups and live text, and File → Export… for a PNG.