I’ve had a couple people ask for a tutorial on how to create the craigsoup.com graphic that I created in my last post, so I thought I’d go ahead and do so while I made a desktop wallpaper out of it. I’ll be using Photoshop CS3 for this tutorial, but you should be able to follow along in older versions of Photoshop as well.
I’m going to start with an image of some old, crumbly wallpaper. I took this picture at my wife’s uncle’s house. Lots of great photo opportunities there! Anyways, here’s the photo (click on the image to get the full size version).
The original image size here is 2272 x 1704. I want to make this for a few different resolutions (1440 x 900, 1024 x 768, and 800 x 600), so I’m not going to resize anything just yet.
1.) The first thing I want to do with the image is tone down the colors to give this a more antiquated look. To do this, I’m going to create a new copy of the layer with the image in it. For something like this, I almost always start with a new copy of the original layer, because I don’t like messing with the original image. You can make a new copy by dragging the current layer to the “New Layer” icon ( 
) or by pressing Cmd+J (Mac) or Ctrl+J (PC) with the image layer selected.
2.) Now we want to remove the color from this new layer. To do this, I’m going to select the new layer (which should be directly above the original layer) and desaturate it (Cmd+Shift+U or Ctrl+Shift+U). This layer should now be a grayscale version of the original layer.
3.) Now, we’re going to make ANOTHER copy of the original layer by once again dragging the ORIGINAL layer (not the grayscale one) to the “New Layer” icon or by selecting the original layer and hitting Cmd+J or Ctrl+J. Drag this new copy to the very top of the layer stack so that it’s directly above the grayscale layer.
Your Layers Palette should now look like this (notice I’ve also labeled the layers appropriately):
4.) Now, simply change the blend mode of the top layer (the “Color Copy” layer) from “normal” to “soft light” (the blend mode dropdown list is found at the top of the Layers palette). This results in muted colors that give our photo a more antique-ish feel.
Very cool! Steps 1-4, by the way, are always a GREAT way to give your images an older, vintage feel. The blend mode you choose in step 4 may vary depending on the image (sometimes “overlay” works a little better), but for the most part, this technique almost always yields great results.
5.) Another thing I want to do is to rotate the photo 180 degrees so that the corner of the wall is closer to the right side of the image. To do this, go to “Image > Rotate Canvas > 180″. And voila! The image has been flipped.
6.) Now I want to bring up the contrast and reduce the brightness a little bit in order to make our image look a little more spooky. I’m going to do this using an adjustment layer. You can create an adjustment layer using another handy little icon at the bottom of the layers palette. This is the icon that looks like a circle that’s half black and half white. When you click on this icon, you’ll get a popup menu. Choose “Brightness/Contrast” from this menu. For this image, I’ve chosen a brightness of -36 and a contrast of +81.
And here’s the result:
Now we’re getting somewhere!
7.) Now we’re going to get really nasty! Select the “burn” tool ( 
), and using a large brush size with soft edges, go to town on the grayscale layer. (I had my “exposure” for the burn tool set to 34%, in case you’re wondering.) This will darken the parts of the image you brush over, so don’t go overboard, but especially try to darken the edges of the image. Keep brushing over the grayscale layer until your image looks something like this:
Freaky! I love it!
8.) Now I want to highlight the hole in the wallpaper that you see right in the middle of the image. So I’m going to choose the “dodge” tool (located in the same spot at the “burn” tool) and touch up the hole (again, on the grayscale layer) to make it stand out more . . . like so:
9.) This is where things get fun. At this point, we’re gonna jump on over to brusheezy.com and download some new Photoshop brushes. For this particular effect, I suggest the Blood and Splatter brushes, the TurkHitBox Grunge Set brushes, and the Floral Swirl brushes. (If you don’t know how to install new brushes read this article.) Using the paintbrush tool, select your choice of any of the previously mentioned brushes, create a new layer, choose white for the foreground color, and click somewhere on your image. This will result in a bright white shape. To calm the shape down, simply change the blend mode of the layer to “overlay” or “soft light”, whichever works best. Sometimes when you do this (especially with the grunge brushes), the shape won’t be bright enough to see. If this is this case, simply make a copy of the “soft light” layer right on top of itself, and it will brighten right up. If it’s too bright, simply lower the opacity of one of the layers.
So go crazy with this step, using whatever combination of brushes you like. This is what I ended up with:
As they say in Canada . . . Not bad, eh?
10.) Now for the text. Pick the font of your choice and type in the text of your choice using the Text tool. (Use white for the text color.) Rasterize the text so you can transform it as you wish, and then play with the blend modes to get the desired results. In my image, I made a second copy of the text and reduced the opacity of this second copy to 30%. I used a blend mode of “overlay” for both of these text layers. Here’s my final result:
Here are some download links if you’d like to use this wallpaper on your desktop:
1440 x 900
1024 x 768
800 x 600
Enjoy! Let me know what you think!
My first show-off piece was actually just an experiment — a little bit of tomfoolery, if you will. A few years ago, I decided, against my better judgment, to see if I could create a photorealistic graphic of a guitar in Photoshop. I say “against my better judgment” because I knew that it wouldn’t be a quick project that I could just throw together.
