Friday, June 13, 2008

Banner I

1. Open a new file in an approximate banner size. Mine is 300 x 100. (Ctrl-O)

2. Find a decent image that has a reasonably solid background. I am using this one of Yoon Eun Hye from the Asianfanatics Celeb Gallery.



3. Drag this picture on to your banner file.



4. Now, inspect the background of your image. is there some way you can make the background of your banner blend easily with it? I look at mine and realize it's almost like a gradient from green to blue.

5. Take the eye dropper tool and find the dominate colour of the background of your image. If there are two, set them foreground and background.

Here are my settings:


6. Now. If your background is one solid colour, simply fill the background layer (which should be behind your image) with that colour. Since I have two, I'm going to use a gradient.

Here is what my background looks like:


7. Next, blend your image into the background using a layer mask (soft brush) or soft eraser.

Mine now looks like this:


You are now basically done and you may add whatever effects you'd like to it. I'll suggest a few here.

[Decorating and Enchancing]

1. Change the colour tone of your banner if it looks dull. You may achieve this through a Selective Colour adjustment layer or Color balance. See the "colour manipulation" tutorial for more details. I did not do it to this banner.

2. Add filters to the banner to enhance the mood. I used this fractal from Paint-Pops, manipulating the colour. I duplicated the fractal and set both layers to Screen. I manipulated the colour of one filter to more of a greenish hue so it wouldn't look too bright. I also erased filters that covered her face.

3. I made a new layer on top of everything and filled it with black. I set this layer to "Colour" at 20% opacity.

4. Alt-Ctrl-Shift-E everything and move this layer to the top of everything. Set this to Soft Light

5. Add text! On my banner, I wrote:
"Cherish" in Beautiful ES with 400px of letter-spacing. This is set to 100% Softlight and is duplicated.
"Yoon Eun Hye" is in Felix Titling with 0px of letter-spacing. This is set to 80% Normal.

All My Layers:


My End Product:


You may use this banner at forums but you may NOT claim it as your own. Just because I did not put my credit on it does not mean you can say you made it.