Creating a Typographic Wallpaper

What is Typography?

In order to create a typographic wallpaper, it would make sense to know a bit about Typography in the first place. Typography is the art and technique of arranging movable type. 

What does this mean? 
It means that text itself portrays a message all of its own.
Its location, font-family, font-style, color and size all determine the message it portrays. 

Using a really blocky font for a wedding image wouldn’t make sense, because blocky text isn’t elegant or extravagant, like cursive and curly fonts can be. While this tutorial won’t focus on the essence of typography, understanding what makes type look good will help to create a great design.

This is by no means an in depth look at typography. Typography is a subject folks have written many, many books on, and there is a lot to be learned about it. I’d definitely suggest picking up a book like "Thinking With Type" if it’s something you find interest in.

 
 
 ☺Step 1  
- Creating the Background -
 
The background of our wallpaper is going to help set the mood. Using a dark background will allow us to make the typography we use later really stand out of our image.

- Create a new document with the dimensions you desire. My desktop is 1280×1024px, so that will be my document size. 
- Set your foreground color to a dark gray (#111111) and your background color to black (#000000). 
- Then grab the Radial Gradient Tool and create a light to dark gradient near the center of your document.

☺ Step 2 
– Setting Our Text Boundary - 

- Create a large 9 and then use it to place our other text. 
- To accomplish this, grab your Type Tool. 
- Then place a 750px 9 using the font Century Gothic set to bold so that it is located in front of the center of your gradient. I also set my to the color #6dcff6 since my font will look blue later. 
- Then lower the opacity of the layer to around 20%, since it is only being used as a guide.

 ☺ Step 3 
– Placing the Type - 

Now that we have our boundary area, we are ready to start adding our type. 
Use the font Century Gothic, because it has a strong yet clean look, and will allow us to easily fit the font into the 9. (Feel free to use multiple fonts in your own work).
Since I’m only using one font, I’m limited to ways I can make each phrase stand out. For this, I can use different font sizes and styles. I can increase the size of a font and make it bold so that it stands out, or I can make it smaller and use a crisp or smooth style to make it more subtle.

 

☺ Step 4 

– Coloring the Text -

Now that we have a vast stream of words filling our 9, we need to make this image look amazing! Lets start by lowering the opacity of our 9 to around 2%. This way it will help give some border around our text, but not too noticeable.

 

Then place all of your text layers (except the 9) into a Group (Layer > New > Group). 

- Duplicate the group by right clicking it and selecting Duplicate Group. 

- Click OK when the dialog box appears. The reason we duplicated the group is so that we can merge all of our text layers into one. With the new group selected, right click it and select Merge Group. This will take all of the layers in our group and place them onto a single layer. 

- Now you can hide the group that still has all of the text layers in it since we have this single layer with all of our text.

Select your merged layer in your layers palette and add a Gradient Overlay (Layer > Layer Style >Gradient Overlay). I used a nice green (#48a248) for the bottom and a blue (#3bb2f7) for the top.

☺Step 5 
– Adding a Title - 

Let’s add a nice title to our wallpaper.
- I’m going to add the text Happy New Year (Centruy Gothic / 36px / Italic) and use the same gradient overlay as before, except from left to right instead.
- Then I’m going to add the text (Century Gothic / 24px / Italic) with the color #736357.

☺Step 6 
– Adding Texture -

Now let’s add a texture over our image. I grabbed an image off of www.sxc.hu.
- Place the texture on a new layer on top of your document.
- De-saturate the image (Ctrl+Shift+U) and set the layer to Overlay.

 Step 7 
– Re-Colorization - 
In the next steps, we are going to add some more random and vibrant color to our image.

- Create a new layer and set your foreground to #6dcff6 and background to #000000. 
- Then go to Filter > Render > Clouds. 
- After your layer is filled with a mixture of blue and black “clouds”, set the layer to Overlay and lower the Opacity to 25%.

- Create another new layer and change your background color to white. Once again go to  
  Filter > Render > Clouds to fill your layer with blue and white “clouds”.
- Then set your layer to Overlay and lower the Opacity to around 70%.

Simple enough?

As you can see, the hardest part of this tutorial was filling the document was text. Adding effects was actually quite simple. After learning all of the tools in Photoshop you will find yourself creating complex works with minimal effort!

Feel free to experiment and create your own unique works.

 To get the effect above, I created a new layer and went to Image > Apply Image.
- Then I used a Filter > Blur > Motion Blur and set the layer to Lighten with 35% Opacity.
 - After that, I created a Gradient Map (Layer > New Adjust Layer > Gradient Map) that went from #ec008c to #e77418.
- Finally, I set the gradient map layer to Vivid Light.

source : HERE 

Memorable Sepia

Make your photos memorable with this romantic Photoshop photo effect. In this Photoshop tutorial, you will learn how to create and combine a split sepia effect with a targeted vignette.

Step 1

Open a photo into Photoshop.
Use a wedding or engagement photo if you have one because this effect is most suitable for those types of photos.

Step 2

In the layers palette, click on the add adjustment layer button and choose Black & White. If you’re using Photoshop CS2 or older, you will not have access to the Black & White adjustment layer. For users of Photoshop CS2 or older, skip this step and proceed with the next step.

Step 3 (For Photoshop CS2 or older)

- If you’re using Photoshop CS2 or older, you don’t have access to the Black & White adjustment layer. Instead, you can use the Channel Mixer and Hue/Saturation tool to achieve similar (but not exact) results.
- Add a Channel Mixer and Hue/Saturation adjustment layer and apply the settings shown below.

Remember to have the Hue/Saturation adjustment layer on the top.

When done, hold the Ctrl key and click on the two adjustment layers.
- Then press Ctrl+G to group the layers.
- The layers should now appear inside a group in the Layers palette.
- Select the group and choose Layer --> Layer Mask --> Reveal All.

Step 4

In the layers palette, click on the layer mask thumbnail to select it.
- If you’re using Photoshop CS2 or older, click on the layer mask for the group.
- Choose Image --> Apply Image and use the settings from the image below.
  Don’t click OK yet.

Depending on the effect that you like, you can enable or disable the invert option.
(With the invert option unchecked, the sepia effect will be visible on the highlights of the image. With the invert checked, the sepia effect will be visible on the shadows of the image.)
- Click OK when you’re done using the Apply Image tool.

Step 5

Now we’ll add a vignette that can be position anywhere in the image.
- Select the Background layer and add a Gradient fill layer. This will add a Gradient fill layer above the Background layer.

In the Gradient fill option, copy the settings from the image below.
- On the document window, click and drag the gradient and position it where your subject is. For the image used in this Photoshop tutorial, I positioned in on the faces of the subjects. If you cannot see where the gradient is being positioned, click OK,
- Change the blending mode of the Gradient Fill layer to Multiply, then double-click on the layer again to adjust the Gradient Fill settings.

Change the blending mode to Multiply, if not already done.

Final Results

Here are the final results of this memorable sepia Photoshop photo effect.
There are two variations to the effect and both have quite different results.

Basics - Selecting Hair

Selecting Hair

"Basics"

Extracting fine hair detail from a background is one of the most tricky jobs in Photoshop. A professional way to do it takes you to the channel palette, where you prepare a mask that can be loaded as a selection.

01 Prepare the Channel

After opening the photo, switch from the layer palette to the channel palette.
From the Red, Green, and Blue channel, choose the one that displays the greatest contrast to the background. Copy it by mouse-dragging it to the New Channel button. The copy is highlighted in blue and active.

02 Improve the Channel

Select Levels (Ctrl+L) from Image > Adjustments. Set the White and Black marker to make for a harder contrast.

Then continue improving the channel with the Dodge and Burn tools. Dark background areas should be lightened, too bright areas in the hair should be darkened.

03 Fill Contents

Now our goal is to select all remaining areas that need to be extracted and color them black.

You could use the brush tool with a black foreground color, or you could select those areas with the selection tools and fill them with black.

Then press Ctrl+I on your keyboard to invert the channel

04 Extraction

If necessary, fix remaining spots, then turn the black and white channel into a selection by holding the Ctrl key and clicking on the channel’s mask icon. Click on the RGB channel switch back to the layer palette.

Copy the selection in the menu (Layer > New > Layer via Copy) or with Ctrl+J.

With Elements, too?

Unfortunately, since Photoshop Elements doesn’t have a channel palette, you can’t use this image processing tip with the small Photoshop.

Alternatively you could try the background eraser or Image > Magic Extractor. Still, both tools deliver noticeably less professional results – at least when you’re extracting hair.