Wallpaper Tutorial

[hobbleit]

Ok, here is the latest tutorial I've written (the one I've been meaning to post for the last week)

I'm going to make this wall



Images- from http://caps.oxoniensis.org/






Stocks- from Stock exchange




Textures from http://www.hideous-beauty.com/reflect/menu.htm




Open a canvas (I used 1366x768) and add the images. The main image of Dean is resized to a height of 600px, the second image of Dean, the building and the image of Alastair are both resized to 500px but the image of Castiel is not resized.
Place the images and mask out the hard edges.



I don’t really like the way the edges look so I used 3 stock images on the image. The first one I placed in the bottom left hand corner, resized it to a height of 768px and set it to lighten 25. The second stock image I placed next to the first stock and again I resized it to a height of 768px. This was set to lighten 15%. The third stock image (again resized to 768px and set to lighten 25%) I placed next to the second stock and it covered some of the main image. I then used a texture brush from Belladonna to mask out the hard edges and parts covering the main images.



Next, I used three textures from Reflection. None of them were resized and all were desaturated (again set to lighten 25%). The first texture was placed over by Castiel and the parts covering the image were masked out, the second texture was placed in the bottom centre area (in between the two pics of Dean) and the third texture was placed in the top left hand corner. It should now look something like this.
Merge the layers together (layer- new from visible) and duplicate. Next; go to colour- auto- white balance and then sharpen the image using unsharp mask. Now, I don’t really like how it looks sharpened so I duplicated the image again and used the selective Gaussian blur to blur the image a bit. That layer was set to normal 50% as I thought the blur was too strong.



Now for the colouring. I decided to use three fill layers; the first was filled with #354377 and set to screen 50%, the second was filled with #2e0c46 and set to soft light and the third was filled with #f0f477 and set to soft light 50%. Next, merge the layers again and darken using levels.

Then I added some gradients. Duplicate the layer twice and select the gradients. I’m using two gradients from *blueeyedmagickman. They are called 1. basic_black_red_yellow_white and 2.basic_black_blue. Each gradient has to go on a separate layer so select the first duplicated layer and the first gradient and go to colour- map- gradient map. Then set to soft light 50%. Repeat the same process for the second gradient and set to soft light 25%. The gradient map looks like this when applied.



It now looks something like this.



Next I added the text. I chose to use quotes from the episode and used the fonts Sans and multu ornamental. I used the colour #825178 and set each layer to addition. I then merged the layers together again and duplicated it twice.
The first of these layers I went to filter- noise- hsv noise and kept that at 100%. The second duplicated layer I went to filter- artistic- oilify and set that layer to normal 40%. I didn’t like the effect it had on the text so I erased that part to make it stand out.
Finally I added a border in the same colour as the text.

other examples using the same method
-x-

[ilaria]

it's awesome,I'm going to try it soon
thanks hun


unfortunately i can find this one hsv noise and the gradients don't work with me(as always so mine looks really bad )

[hobbleit]

hsv noise is under filters- noise abd it's the first one if i remember rightly

[Yoda]

Awesome tutorial, Hobbleit! My sister wanted me to make her new backgrounds for her desktop so I followed your instructions (except with different textures). I made this One Tree Hill wallpaper first and then this Star Trek one.

[hobbleit]

awesome, i love the star trek one

[Yoda]

Thank you.