Making this wallpaper:
The Basics
- Level: Beginner/Intermediate
- Used Photoshop 7.0
- Translatable: All photoshop versions, possibly into PSP
I was going for a soft, colorful, starry look. And since Heroes is my new obsession I've been working on art for it like mad!
So I have my first images, all from Heroes Media. My first image is a group photo of the entire cast, my other two are of Nathan and Claire.
1) I pasted the group image on a 1024x768 canvas. Then I took the picture of Nathan and placed it on the left side of the canvas, on the right, I placed the Claire photo.
2) I masked out the background of the Nathan and Claire images. I recommend using the pen tool, polygonal lasso tool, and/or a soft round brush. I usually use a combination of all 3 of these tools to get a flawless cutout but in this case it doesn't have to be perfect.
3) Now time for the effects! I created a new layer and merged the image into it (simply Control>Shift>Alt>N>E). I went to Filter>Noise>Reduce Noise. This filter is amazing for smoothing skin an creating a glowy feel. I use these settings:
Strength:10
Preserve Details to 10
4) I copied that layer and applied Filter>Artistic>Paint Duabs. I use these settings:
Brush Size: 3
Sharpness: 0
5) The faces in the group photo are way too blurry from the Paint Duabs Effect. So I mask out the eyes and the mouth (or you can just erase but masking is much easier to fix mistakes).
6) Woo, now time for textures. Both of them are from J.j. I set the first texture to screen and mask out anything over the faces and a little bit of the body.
7) I also set the second texture to screen, and removed anything over the faces and a little bit of the body again.
8) Grandient Maps are my new favorite effect! I use two different gradients from Signe. Create a new gradient map by going to Layer>New Adjustment Layer>Gradient Map. I used the last gradient in Signe's first gradient set. Set it to soft light.
9) Last but not least, I make another gradient map and use this gradient from Signe's second gradient set. I set it to soft light. All done!
