{wallpaper tutorial #1}
This is my first wallpaper tutorial- I'm going to try to make it detailed, so those who haven't been using shop for a long time, can still understand. But, if you do have questions you ccan e-mail me at kirsten@comforting-lie.com. In this tutorial, I'll walk you through on how I made this wallpaper. It's a Veronica Mars wallpaper, from the season 3 premiere 'The Welcome Wagon'.The Beginning
1) Open up photoshop and then make a new file. Go to file>new (ctrl+n). My settings are- width: 1024 pixels, height: 768 pixels, mode: RGB color and contents: transparent. I personally like to start off with a transparent background, but others will work just fine. I then open up my pics- theres 4 different caps I'm using in this piece, which I got from Screencap Paradise. The caps I use are these: x, x, x and x.The Caps
2) I then use the crop tool (C). So I crop the first two pics in the way I wanted. For the other two pics, I had to fix something before I cropped it. The darn CW logo is on the cap in a place I needed to keep, so I have to photoshop it out. Fortunately, the logo is just on plain grey, so this will be easy to do. I'll do pic #3 first. I take the close stamp tool (S) to remove it. Take a soft round brush with the diameter of 27-65. Then on the cap, press alt in an area that is near the CW logo that has the same background needed to replace it. So, I hold down alt and then press on a grey area of Logan's shirt. Then I brush over the logo. You may have to do this a few times to make it look good. I then do the same for the 4th pic. After, this I crop them both. I now drag all my cropped pictures onto my canvas using the move tool (V). I place them where I want and resize them if necessary, My canvas now looks like this (that's after I improved the caps though):
3) I merge these caps together (ctrl+e). You can also link them and then go to layer>merge linked. I pretty much always smooth out my images before I do anything else. Duplicate (layer>duplicate) your merged layer. Then go to filter>noise>median and put your radius to 5. I then set the duplicated layer at normal 50% and merge it with the origial layer. I then go to filter>other>high pass and set the radius to 1. I then go to edit>fade high pass and have my opacity at 100% and mode at overlay. I want it a bit brighter, so I duplicate the layer and set it to screen at 10%. You're piece should now look like the image I put before this step.
Background colour and pattern
4) I then fill my background with the colour: #C6D1DD, a light greyish blue. I make a new layer under the cap layer, but over the background. I make a rectangle shap using the rectangle marquee tool (M) and fill the rectangle with a brownish colour, #C7B299. I'm now going to use this pattern, I can't remember where I got it from though, sorry. To 'install' the pattern, open it up in photoshop and go to edit>define pattern. I then duplicate the brown rectangle layer, then go to select>load selection and then go to edit>fill. The settings are: use:pattern, mode:soft light and opacity:100%. I select the pattern I was talking about before. Your canvas and layer panel should now look like this:
Adding colour through gradient maps
5) I'm now going to add some gradient maps. I'm really into gradients right now, so I used 7 in this piece. To use gradient maps, click the black/white circle on the bottom of your layer panel and select gradient map. A window will pop up, click the big bar of colour and another window will pop up with all your gradients. To install gradients, press load in the window and find the gradient set you downloaded and select it. The first gradient I use is from 5 of Wendy's gradients at Blacklagoon, you can download the set (and all her other's) here and you can see which gradient I used from the set here. I put this gradient on top of everything at soft light 50%. I then put this gradient on top, which is from set 3 of Blacklagoon's gradients. I set this Darken at 50%. I don't like how it looks on the background colour, so I select (select>load selection) the cap layer, make sure it's on the cap layer in the layer panel, or it'll select like nothing. Then I reverse the selection (select>inverse) and in the mask of that gradient (which is the white box beside the gradient, I fill (using the bucket tool [G]) it with black at 50%. Now in the layer panel, the previously white box should be greyish in the area where the caps aren't. This masked/erased the gradient in that area. The next gradient set is from Misplaced, you can download the gradients here. The name of the gradient is misplaced5- it goes from a darkred/brown, to a blue, to a pink, to a lighter pink. I set this to soft light 30%. I can't seem to find where I got my next gradient from, but it looks like this. I set this to soft light at 40%. My next gradients is from set 6 at Misplaced and it's called Misplaced 16. I set this to multiply at 50%. Next I add this gradient from set 5 at Blacklagoon. I set it to soft light at 50%. And finally my last gradient- it's from set 5 at Misplaced and it's named misplaced 20. I set this to darken at 50%. So like I said- I'm really into gradients right now, lol. It's best if you experiment though. My piece now looks like this:
Brushes
6) I don't do much brushwork for this wallpaper, just two, both from Sarah at Aprilsky. The first is from her drawn set, I used one of the 'scribbles', the biggest one from the set. I make a new layer under the cap layer but above the pattern layer. I use the brush on the colour: #005952. I set the layer to soft light at 100%, I then duplicate the layer- I keep it on soft light, but set the opacity to 50%. You can't really see the brush much, but you will be able after the textures. I then use one of the brushes from the dotted set. I make a new layer above the the 'drawn' brush, and just use one of the brushes one time. The layer is at normal and 100%. My piece now looks like this:
Textures
7) I've used 4 textures in this piece. I'll show you how I used them, but you should experiment while using textures. Play around with the blending options and try using more than just one. So this is the first texture I used and I got it from Soar Above the Sky (can't find a link to it though). I put it under the brush layers, but above the layer with the pattern. I set it to multiply at 20%. I then use this texture (from Aprilsky) and put it above the last. I set it to soft light at 100%. I then use this texture, also from aprilsky, and place it above my last. I set it to multiply at 30%. And this is my last texture, from More Adventurous. I set it to soft light at 100%. This is how my piece looks now:
Filters
8) Now for a few finishing touches. First flatten your image (layer>flatten image). First, something I picked up from Wendy. Go to filter>stylize>find edges. The go to edit>fade, and have it at: opacity: 10-15% and mode:darken. Then for one more filter. Duplicate your layer. Then go to filter>artistic>paint daubs. My setting is at 3. This is way too strong on the pics themself, so add a layer mask. Then brush over Veronica/Logan's faces with a soft round brush on black at 50-70% or any other parts that you feel need to be masked (like the dotted line for example. Then I flatten the image once again.Border
9) Now for a border. I take the eyedropper tool (I) and pick a colour from my piece. I chose a bluish green colour, #275A58. Then I double click my layer, a window pops up and I just select ok (this is just to unlock the background). Then I click add a layer style at the bottom and select stroke. I keep the size at 3, put the position on inside and change my colour.Text
10) I chose a LoVe quote from the scene I'm doing. For my font I chose century gothic (a favourite of mine). Also, I open up the character palette and set the tracking to 150-250, can't remember how much exactly. And that's it, we're done. And one more thing, you might not have to do this- I find that when I save it, it's too greenish, so I go to image>color balance and move the slider towards magenta (-15 to -25). Also drag the yellow a bit (about -10). And that's it, this is my final product:
