Wallpaper Tutorial #2

Saturday, November 1, 2008

(Click each small picture for the bigger version)

In this tutorial, we will be trying to achieve something like this:


Is it hard? Not at all.

1. Pick your picture. Be smart and pick one with a solid background. I took the following one of Kim Junsu from the divine group of Dong Bang Shin Ki [Credits to Soompi]


2. Drag it on to a canvas of appropriate size. Fill in the background of the canvas with the color that's the same as the background of your picture.

3. Make a new layer on top of everything and fill it with black. Set this layer to the "Color" blending mode. Adjust the opacity so that the colours of your main focus (Junsu, in my case) isn't that vibrant or contrasting to the color you plan to use. You can always adjust later. I used 20%.


4. Make another new layer on top of everything and fill it in with the colour of your choice. I recommend something soft. I used pink.

5. Create a layer mask on that and using a soft brush in low opacity, slowly brush away the parts covering your focus.


6. Looks plain? Yeah I think so too. We're going to now create a cool effect to drop over everything else. Be sure your color palettes are set to the default (press D on your keyboard) Make a new layer. Grab your gradient tool and set the settings to the ones as below.


7. Set that layer to "Screen" blending mode at 100%

8. Now, simply drag your gradient around until you make something nice. It's "supposed to" look like silk.

9. If the silk layer doesn't show enough, duplicate that layer and set it to "Screen" at 50%


10. Next, make a new layer and fill it with with the original cover you had lay over your pictures (pink, in my case). Now inverse that layer (Ctrl-I) and set it to "Exclusion" at 20%.


11. Simply add any other effects (text, filters, etc.)


Note: Remember, you can always change the layer settings to something that better suites your wallpaper. Good luck!