Tutorial 05: Bill Kaulitz wallpaper
This is a pretty simple wallpaper to make, as all it involves is throwing a bunch of textures at it and playing a tiny bit with the coloring.
How I made this wallpaper from this. This is not the original source image, though, as I had to size it down. The original source image is high-res and five times as big.
All right, the first thing I did was resize the high-res pic of Bill at the 2009 EMAs to something a little more manageable. I knew from the start I was going to make the wallpaper in two sizes, 1280x1024 and 1440x900, but I first started with the 1280 one as that's my native resolution. All the images in this tutorial have been sized down so they won't stretch browsers/layouts, and to reduce loading times.
The original image, despite being HQ, is very much washed out. That's the first thing I fixed. Duplicate your layer (Control + J) and set it to soft light. Then create a new layer and floodfill it with black. Also set this layer to soft light. The image now looks like this:
(Ignore the bar on the left. I saved the .psd, but I did the initial clean-up in another .psd that I no longer have, so I'm recreating the first bit from scratch.)
I decided to fix the background by recoloring it all the same color. I picked the color #2f1314 from the image itself (top right, close to Bill's hair because -- and I would like to state this for the record -- dealing with his hair is a giant pain in the ass. Therefore I opted to make it easier on myself; this way I wouldn't have to recolor any background on that side).
With the color #2f1314 selected, start coloring around him. This is the most tedious bit of the process, especially on the trickier bits, like HIS GODDAMN HAIR. Ahem. Anyway, when you're done, it will hopefully look something like this:
From here on out, it gets easier :). I added this texture and set it to soft light, 51%:
After that, I created a new selective coloring layer. Go to the little half-moon icon on the bottom of your palette and select "Selective Coloring".
In the reds: Cyan +18%, Yellow +10%, Black +17%.
In the neutrals: Cyan +45%.
I added this texture and set it to soft light, 68%:
And the last texture I added was this one. That texture layer was set to multiply, 30%. The end result is that the wallpaper now looks like this:
After all that, it's just a matter of adding the text. (I hate adding text because I suck at it.) After agonizing it for over half an hour, and scrolling through all my fonts at least three times, I finally settled on a line from World Behind My Wall, "they're telling me it's beautiful". The font is Print Clearly, at 30pt and 480 tracking (tracking is the space between each individual letter).
I then duplicated the text layer, lowered the opacity to 37% and moved it slightly below and to the right of the original line.
The end result:
See the fullsize.
:) That's it. Not too difficult, though it helps to start out with a high-quality image unless you're a real Photoshop wizard (I'm not) and are excellent at cleaning up pics.
How I made this wallpaper from this. This is not the original source image, though, as I had to size it down. The original source image is high-res and five times as big.
All right, the first thing I did was resize the high-res pic of Bill at the 2009 EMAs to something a little more manageable. I knew from the start I was going to make the wallpaper in two sizes, 1280x1024 and 1440x900, but I first started with the 1280 one as that's my native resolution. All the images in this tutorial have been sized down so they won't stretch browsers/layouts, and to reduce loading times.
The original image, despite being HQ, is very much washed out. That's the first thing I fixed. Duplicate your layer (Control + J) and set it to soft light. Then create a new layer and floodfill it with black. Also set this layer to soft light. The image now looks like this:
(Ignore the bar on the left. I saved the .psd, but I did the initial clean-up in another .psd that I no longer have, so I'm recreating the first bit from scratch.)
I decided to fix the background by recoloring it all the same color. I picked the color #2f1314 from the image itself (top right, close to Bill's hair because -- and I would like to state this for the record -- dealing with his hair is a giant pain in the ass. Therefore I opted to make it easier on myself; this way I wouldn't have to recolor any background on that side).
With the color #2f1314 selected, start coloring around him. This is the most tedious bit of the process, especially on the trickier bits, like HIS GODDAMN HAIR. Ahem. Anyway, when you're done, it will hopefully look something like this:
From here on out, it gets easier :). I added this texture and set it to soft light, 51%:
After that, I created a new selective coloring layer. Go to the little half-moon icon on the bottom of your palette and select "Selective Coloring".
In the reds: Cyan +18%, Yellow +10%, Black +17%.
In the neutrals: Cyan +45%.
I added this texture and set it to soft light, 68%:
And the last texture I added was this one. That texture layer was set to multiply, 30%. The end result is that the wallpaper now looks like this:
After all that, it's just a matter of adding the text. (I hate adding text because I suck at it.) After agonizing it for over half an hour, and scrolling through all my fonts at least three times, I finally settled on a line from World Behind My Wall, "they're telling me it's beautiful". The font is Print Clearly, at 30pt and 480 tracking (tracking is the space between each individual letter).
I then duplicated the text layer, lowered the opacity to 37% and moved it slightly below and to the right of the original line.
The end result:
See the fullsize.
:) That's it. Not too difficult, though it helps to start out with a high-quality image unless you're a real Photoshop wizard (I'm not) and are excellent at cleaning up pics.