Design a Gothic Restaurant Menu with a Stained-Glass Window

Create a 1400 × 2000 document. Select Background, set the foreground to #1C1D25 and choose Edit → Fill. Run Filter → Add Noise… at 6, Mono, for a little grit.

Rename Layer 1 to Stone Mottle. Set the foreground to white and the background to black, then run Filter → Clouds… at Scale 6. Set the layer's blend mode to Soft Light and its opacity to 45%. The wall now has the uneven light and dark patches of real stone.

Add a layer called Masonry. You'll draw a single block's joints and repeat it across the wall.

1. Choose the Pencil at Size 4 with a near-black #08080B. Click at the top-left corner of the canvas, then Shift-click about 350 px to the right. Draw a second line from the same corner straight down about 140 px.
2. Switch the Pencil to Size 2 and a lighter grey #4C4E5C. Draw the same two lines again, about 4 px inside the dark ones. This thin highlight is what makes the joint look cut into the stone.
3. With the Rectangular Marquee, select the block from the corner to 350 × 140. Click once on the canvas without dragging if you want to type the corners exactly.

Choose Edit → Define Pattern.

Select all, press Delete to clear the block you drew, and choose Edit → Fill with Pattern…. Pick the new pattern and set Row Stagger to 50%. Each course of blocks now sits half a block over from the one below, like real ashlar masonry. Click Apply and set the layer to 85% opacity.

Click the top ruler at 150, 348, 700, 1052 and 1250 to make vertical guides, and the left ruler at 130, 561 and 1036 for horizontal ones. The outer pair mark where the candles go. The inner pair are the sides of the window, 700 is the centre line, and the horizontal guides are the window's point, the top of its straight sides, and its bottom.

Turn off View → Snap to Guides for the next few steps. The circles you're about to draw have edges close to the guides, and you don't want them pulled out of shape.

A gothic arch is two circular arcs that meet at a point. Masons drew it with a compass, and you can do the same with two circles.

Add a layer called Glass and set the foreground to orange #E8641E.

1. Choose the Elliptical Marquee and, with nothing selected, click once on the canvas without dragging. That opens a dialog where you type the corners exactly. Enter From 348, 121 to 1228, 1001: an 880 px circle centred at 788, 561, whose left edge touches the guide at 348. Choose Edit → Fill, then deselect.
2. Click again and enter 172, 121 to 1052, 1001 for a second circle of the same size, centred at 612, 561, whose right edge touches the guide at 1052.
3. Choose Select → Inverse and press Delete. Only the lens where the two circles overlap is left.

Marquee everything below the 561 guide and press Delete to cut off the bottom of the lens. Then marquee from the guides at 348, 561 to 1052, 1036 and fill it. The point of the arch lands exactly on the 130 guide.

Choose Layer → Duplicate Layer, rename the copy Arch Template and hide it. You'll Cmd-click its thumbnail many times to get the window's outline back as a selection.

Deselect, then choose the Gradient tool, set Type to Radial and click Advanced…. Make six stops: #FFD27A, #F59A2A, #D9541E, #8E1530, #2A2F8C and #101848, at about 0, 18, 38, 60, 80 and 100%.

Drag from about 700, 500 straight down to about 700, 1100, a little below the window. Fill the whole layer, not just the arch. The next filter breaks the image into cells, and cells along the arch's edge need colour on both sides to come out whole.

Run Filter → Add Noise… at 16 with Color and Uniform. On its own this just looks grainy. Its job is to give every piece of glass a slightly different tint.

Now run Filter → Voronoi… with Cells 34, Edge Width 0 and Seed 128. Each cell takes the colour at its centre, so the noise turns into hand-picked glass: no two neighbouring pieces quite match.

The Voronoi Seed is repeatable: run it again with the same settings on a layer of the same size, and you get exactly the same cells. You'll use that to draw lead lines along every edge.

1. Add a layer called Lead above Glass.
2. Fill it with mid grey #808080.
3. Run Add Noise at 100, Mono, Uniform.
4. Run Voronoi again with Cells 34, Edge Width 0, Seed 128.

The cells match the glass exactly, but neighbouring cells now have very different greys, which makes their edges easy to find.

Run Filter → Find Edges. Every boundary between two cells becomes a thin bright line on black.

Now thicken those lines and make them black:

1. Threshold at 8, so every edge becomes pure white.
2. Gaussian Blur at 2.
3. Threshold again at 60. The blur spreads each line, and the second threshold cuts it back to a solid line about 5 px wide.
4. Filter → Invert, so you have black lines on white.
5. Set the layer to Multiply. The white disappears and only the lead shows.

To trim both layers to the window, Cmd-click the Arch Template thumbnail, choose Select → Inverse, and press Delete on Lead and then on Glass.

Zoom in and look over the window. Here and there two cells will have had nearly the same grey, so Find Edges skipped their boundary and left a gap or a dotted line. Fix those by hand on the Lead layer: Pencil, Size 5, black, click one end of the missing edge and Shift-click the other.

Also look for short stubs of lead that don't join anything, especially along the edge of the arch. Lasso them and press Delete.

Real glass isn't evenly coloured. Add a layer called Glass Shading between Glass and Lead. Cmd-click the Arch Template thumbnail, run Clouds at Scale 10 with white and black, and deselect. Set it to Overlay at 35%.

The frame is a bigger version of the same arch. Add a layer called Arch Frame above Lead and set the foreground to warm stone #6B625A.

1. Use the exact-corners dialog again for two 960 px circles on the same centres as before: 308, 81 to 1268, 1041, and 132, 81 to 1092, 1041. Fill the first, deselect, then select the second, Inverse it and delete, exactly as you did for the window.
2. Delete everything below 561, then fill a rectangle from 308, 561 to 1092, 1076 for the sides.
3. Cmd-click Arch Template, choose Select → Shrink… by 5, and press Delete on Arch Frame. That opens the window up and leaves the frame overlapping the glass by a few pixels, like a real rebate.

Cmd-click the frame's thumbnail and run Add Noise at 16, Mono, so it reads as stone instead of plastic.

A stone arch is built from wedge-shaped blocks called voussoirs. Pick the Pencil at Size 3 in dark #241F1B. Across the left arc, draw short lines that point back towards the right circle's centre. Space them evenly, about six on each side. Click the inner edge of the frame, then Shift-click the outer edge. Do the same on the right arc, pointing back towards the left circle's centre. Add three level joints across each straight side.

Then open the layer's effects and add:

• Inner Glow: near-black #0A0806, Size 24, Opacity 90%, so the frame's inner and outer edges curve away
• Drop Shadow: black, offset 0, 14, Blur 28, Opacity 75%

Add a layer called Sill. Fill a slab a little wider than the frame (284, 1066 to 1116, 1104) with #6B625A, and a slightly narrower, darker lip under it in #463F39. Give it the same noise, an Inner Glow of Size 10, and a Drop Shadow of 0, 16, Blur 22.

Light from the glass should warm the stone next to it. Add a layer called Reveal Light. Cmd-click Arch Template, Grow… by 18 and fill with #FF8A2A. Cmd-click Arch Template again and press Delete, leaving a thin orange ring. Marquee a strip along the top of the sill and fill that too. Run Gaussian Blur at 16 and set the layer to Screen at about 32%. Keep it faint: you want warm stone, not a glowing tube.

Finally, select Masonry and add a layer called Light Spill. Fill an ellipse about 1100 × 1300 px centred on the window with #E0561A, run Gaussian Blur at 140, and set it to Screen at 45%. The wall now looks lit by the window.

Copy your raven photo and paste it with Cmd+V while Lead is selected, so it lands just above the glass. Rename the layer Raven.

The paste comes in selected, with handles. Hold Cmd and drag a corner handle inwards to scale it evenly, until the bird is about 450 px from the top of its head to the tip of its tail. Then drag from inside the box to move the bird so its head is near the top of the window, its chest is over the brightest part of the glass, and its tail hangs towards the lower right. Press Enter to commit.

Run Filter → Threshold… at 150. The sky goes white and the bird goes black.

The edge of a thresholded photo is jagged. To smooth it, run Gaussian Blur at 1.5 and then Threshold again at 128.

If the bird is standing on a post or perch in the photo, lasso the part below its feet and press Delete.

Choose the Magic Wand with Contiguous on and click the white sky. Press Delete, then deselect.

There are still white feather highlights inside the bird. Turn Contiguous off, click one of them, and fill the selection with near-black #0B0A10. Then Cmd-click the Raven thumbnail and fill once more, which flattens any grey sheen left from the photo. Now the raven is one solid silhouette, like a piece of black glass.

Give the layer an Inner Glow in #FF7A1A, Size 5, Opacity 75%. It catches the edges as if the bird were backlit by the window.

Add a layer called Branch between Lead and Raven, so the bird's feet sit on top of it. With the Lasso, draw the branch's outline:

• start under the frame on the left at about the height of the window's middle
• rise gently to the right, passing just under the raven's feet
• end in a point about 100 px before the right side of the window
• make it about 20 px thick on the left and 6 px at the tip, with a bump for a knot

Fill it with #0B0A10 and add the same orange Inner Glow at Size 4. Keep it to one clean branch: extra twigs crossing the glass get confused with the lead lines.

Click Glass in the Layers panel, Shift-click Reveal Light, and choose Layer → Group Layers. Name the group Window. Now you can hide or move the whole window as one piece.

Select Arch Template and click New Group. Name it Candles. Build the left candle on the 150 guide, one layer at a time:

1. Candle Glow L: a soft ellipse of #FF8A2A where the flame will be, blurred at 60 and set to Screen at 50%.
2. Quatrefoil L: with the Elliptical Marquee, draw a circle about 48 px across, then Shift-drag three more around it so they overlap in a four-leafed shape about 90 px wide, centred on the 150 guide at about y 215. Fill it with any colour, Cmd-click the thumbnail and drag a Radial gradient from the centre outwards, from #FFD27A through #E8641E to #8E1530. Add an outside Stroke of 9 in frame stone #6B625A, a dark Inner Glow and a soft orange Outer Glow.
3. Sconce L: in iron #1A1820, lasso a pointed backplate about 40 px wide hanging from y 785 to about y 905. Fill a short stem above it, a small cup, and a flat ellipse about 125 × 28 px at y 752 for the drip pan. Use the Pen at Stroke 6 for two curling arms from the stem to the plate; press Enter after each one to stroke it. Add a thin warm Inner Glow (#7A5236, Size 3) to catch the candlelight, and a Drop Shadow.
4. Candle L: marquee the candle body, about 60 px wide from y 520 down to the drip pan, and drag a horizontal Linear gradient across it from dark tan to cream and back to dark. That makes it look round. Fill a pale ellipse on top for the melted pool. Paint drips straight down with a Brush at Size 10, and click a slightly bigger dot at the end of each. Pencil a short black wick.
5. Flame L: lasso a teardrop and fill it orange #FF9A2E. Lasso a smaller teardrop lower down and fill it pale #FFF4C8. Run Gaussian Blur at 2 and add an Outer Glow of #FF8A2A at Size 50.

Make the right-hand set the same way on the 1250 guide, but make that candle a little shorter and give it different drips, so the two sides aren't mirror copies.

To set the quatrefoils into the wall, Cmd-click each quatrefoil's thumbnail, Grow… by 12, select Masonry and press Delete. The joints stop at the stone surround instead of running behind it.

Select Arch Template and click New Group. Name it Menu, and add an empty layer in it called Menu Panel.

Choose the Text tool, set the font to UnifrakturMaguntia at 170 px and click on empty canvas. Type Crow & Ember and press Tab. Move it so its top is about 75 px below the sill, then click Align center horizontally in the Move options.

Rename the layer Title and click Rasterize Layer in the Layers panel footer. Cmd-click the title's thumbnail and drag a Linear gradient from the top of the letters to the bottom: #FFE9A8, #F2B54A, #B9541C. Deselect and add:

• Stroke: outside, 2, dark brown #4A1E0A
• Outer Glow: #FF5A14, Size 40, Opacity 55%
• Drop Shadow: 0, 7, Blur 10, Opacity 85%

With Menu Panel selected, set the Text tool to IM Fell English SC at 40 px in #D9CAA6, and type a gothic chophouse · est. mcccxlix in lowercase; this font turns it into small capitals. Name the layer Subtitle. In the Text panel, set Letter spacing to 5. Place it about 30 px below the title and centre it.

Select Menu Panel. With the Rectangular Marquee, select from 150 to 1250 across, starting about 55 px below the subtitle and about 440 px tall, and fill it with #E2D0A8. To clip the corners, drag the Lasso around a small triangle about 22 px deep on each corner and press Delete. Select the panel again by Cmd-clicking its thumbnail and run Add Noise at 6, Mono, Gaussian. Add an Inner Glow of #6E3F1C, Size 60, Opacity 80% to darken the edges, and a Drop Shadow.

Two more layers age it:

• Parchment Mottle: Cmd-click the panel, run Clouds at Scale 4 with white and a brown #5A3A1A, and set it to Multiply at 30%.
• Foxing: Cmd-click the panel again and use the Spray tool (Size 220, Density 3, Opacity 30, Softness 100) in #8A5A2A along the edges and corners. Set the layer to Multiply.

Each column is four text layers. Keep 50 px of padding inside the panel, and create every text layer on empty canvas before you move it into place. Name the layers as you go (Hearth Heading, Hearth Dishes, Hearth Notes, Hearth Prices), so the panel stays easy to work in.

• Heading: Of the Hearth in UnifrakturMaguntia, 48 px, ruby #7E1426, about 45 px below the panel's top edge.
• Dishes: Rook & Bramble Pie, Ember-Roast Pheasant, Midnight Mussels and Cathedral Chop on separate lines, in Spectral SemiBold, 27 px, ink #2A1810. Set Line height to 2.815, which gives a row every 76 px.
• Notes: slow beef, black ale, bramble crust, charred leeks, juniper, smoked salt, squid-ink broth, garlic, hearth bread and bone-in pork, cider, burnt apple, in Spectral Italic, 19 px, #5E4028, with Line height 4 (also 76 px). Move it so each note sits just under its dish.
• Prices: 18, 26, 16 and 32 on separate lines in Spectral SemiBold, 27 px, ruby, with Line height 2.815 and Align right. Line up its right edge 45 px left of the centre line, and its baselines with the dish names.

Repeat for the drinks, starting 45 px right of the centre line: Of the Cellar, then Raven’s Porter, Bishop’s Mulled Wine, Ember Cider and Nightjar Mead, with the notes black malt, cocoa, a curl of smoke, claret, clove, bitter orange, hot spiced apple, burnt sugar and dark honey, sage, candle-warm, and prices 9, 11, 8 and 12 right-aligned 50 px in from the panel's right edge. Use a real apostrophe (’) rather than a straight one.

Add a layer called Menu Rules. With the Pencil at Size 2 in ruby:

• Shift-click a line from just after each heading to the column's right edge, level with the middle of the heading.
• Draw a vertical line down the centre, starting and ending 45 px inside the panel. Leave a short gap in the middle, and lasso a small diamond there and fill it.

Set the layer to 80%.

For the footer, type open from vespers till the last candle · no. 13 rookery lane in IM Fell English SC at 30 px, #C9B990, letter spacing 3. Centre it about 45 px below the panel.

Add a layer called Wax Seal. Lasso a wobbly circle about 100 px across over the panel's bottom-right corner, at least 50 px from the last price and clear of the footer line, and fill it with #8E1530. Fill a circle about 74 px across in darker #5E0B1C on the same centre. Shrink it by 3 and fill it with the wax colour again, leaving a thin pressed ring.

Type C&E in Cinzel Decorative Bold at 22 px in #4A0814 and centre it on the seal. Rasterize it and choose Layer → Merge Down.

Marquee the seal, switch to the Move tool and drag the rotation handle to turn it about 14° anticlockwise. Press Enter.

Give the seal an Inner Glow of #2A0008 at Size 9 and a Drop Shadow of 3, 6, Blur 8. For the shine, add a layer called Seal Shine, fill a small white ellipse on the upper left of the seal, blur it at 6 and set it to about 22%. Any brighter and the wax looks like plastic.

Open the Candles group, select the top layer and add a layer called Embers. Choose the Spray tool at Size 60, Density 3, Opacity 100, Softness 30, in #FFB347.

Make one short drag just above each flame, then one long, wavering drag upwards from the flame. The sparks pile up near the flame and thin out as they rise. Switch to Size 140, Density 1 and make one more pass for a few bigger embers.

Sparks that drift right up to the quatrefoils look like they're pouring out of them. Marquee from the top of the canvas down to about 60 px below each quatrefoil and press Delete, then set the layer to 85%.

Run Motion Blur at 90°, 7 px, so each spark gets a short upward streak, and add an Outer Glow of #FF5A14 at Size 12.

Last of all, look at the candle glows on the wall. If you can still see where each one ends, select Candle Glow L and Candle Glow R in turn, run Gaussian Blur again at 90 and lower it to about 42%. They should fade into the warm light from the window.

Save with File → Save Project, then File → Quick Export PNG.