Today we’ll go through how to put together a wallpaper with the theme of flying. Finding good stock images and composing an image that has a theme gives the audience a clear message , this of course is what graphic design is all about visual communication. The techniques you will learn range from masking to smart objects.

Resources used.

the hawk , sea brushes , jet , Abstract 3D S MAX , this free font,this vector pack ,

Thank you to the ...]]>

Introduction:

Today we’ll go through how to put together a wallpaper with the theme of flying. Finding good stock images and composing an image that has a theme gives the audience a clear message , this of course is what graphic design is all about visual communication. The techniques you will learn range from masking to smart objects.

Resources used.

the hawk , sea brushes , jet , Abstract 3D S MAX , this free font,
this vector pack ,

Thank you to the artists who provided the materials ,please remember to follow these artists rules and credit them where appropriate.

Step 1

First of all find out what resolution your desktop is, mine is 1440 by 900 pixels so I’ll create my document that size.Finding the right stock image can be half the time spent on a project.

If you use an image and find after a few steps it doesn’t work then feel free to change it, just because you’ve found it and are now working on it doesn’t mean you shouldnt find a better one.

Step 2

Download this image of a large wave and place it into your document. I use comp fight to find my stock; it’s a search engine for flickr and allows me to find images with a commercial licence. This is how I resized and positioned the wave.

Step 3

Download this image of the hawk –and cut out of its back ground using your favourite selection method. It doesn’t have to be 100 % accurate just aim for a quick good cut.

Step 4

Use the elliptical Marquee tool and draw a circle over the eye, fill this with purple  920d8d and set the blend mode to multiply. Then add an inner glow layer style with these settings. Colour is fa00ea, the quality contour is the cone inverted and blend mode colour dodge. Lower the layer opacity to 62 %.

Step 5

Add a layer mask to the hawk layer .

Step 6

Download these sea brushes ,then brush around the bottom edge of the hawk, and over the head area . Stay toward the neck and use medium sized brushes.

Step 7

Download this Abstract 3D S MAX shape I drew for a different project and place it in your document above the text and below the hawk . Set it to multiply – Here is the Tiff file download if you want to play around with the 3D shape.

Step 8

Download this free font and install it. Type out: ‘Digital Art Empire’. Use this purple colour 410e1c .Ctrl click the wave layer and the new text layer and align the horizontal centres. Finally add a stroke with these settings .

Step 9

Download this vector pack from here. It doesn’t matter if you don’t have illustrator just use a stock image from somewhere else.

Step 10

Select the wing (second from the left at the bottom), copy it to the clipboard (ctrl + C) then paste it into Photoshop (Ctrl + V) – choose paste as smart object. Then duplicate the layer (ctrl + J) and flip it horizontally, then drag it to the right. Resize them and make sure they are an equal distance apart and in the middle.

Step 11

Download and cut out this  jet image in a new document .

Step12

Once it’s been cut out desaturate it (Ctrl + Shift +U) then duplicate it. Go to image adjustments threshold and use the default 128. Once done put the layer’s blend mode to soft light. Now right click and convert it to a smart object the place it into our working document.

Step 13

Create a new layer above the hawk layer  and with a purple brush change the colour of the beak so its purple. Finally change the layer’s blend mode to overlay and reduce the opacity to 35%.

Step 14

Now we’ll add a gradient fill adjustment layer from orange ‘b06600′ to transparent. Select the wings and the jet using Ctrl + Shift and with the layer mask for thr gradient fill selected fill thsi with black. This should make the gradient miss the jet and vector wings. Finally set the blend mode to darken and reduce the opacity to 64%.

Step 15

Now add a colour balance adjustment layer with the following settings.

Step 16

Add a hue saturation adjustment layer above the abstract shape. Clip it to the Abstract  shape by pressing alt when your cursor is between the layers. Lower the hue to + 126 , you can use any Hue that you find works best , I chose this orangey brown because it go’s well with the Hawk.

Step 17

Spend some time adjusting the placement of the different elements, make sure the jet and wings are spaced in  thright way to eachother and to the image as a whole.

Conclusion:

I hope you learnt something new today, having gone through the tutorial you will now know how to use layer masks and how to blend images together so they look part of a unified whole.