wallpaper tutorial
How to make this
wallpaper.
Okey, first thing you need to do is open your GIMP/Photoshop/whatever-programm-you-use (I did this in Gimp, but I think it is completely translatable) and create a new image (1024x768 is mine, but you may use higher resolution or 1280x800) and fill it with black color.
Next you need to open the images you want to use - this picture of McCoy:
and this picture if Kirk:
. As you can see, my picture of Kirk is in very large resolution, so I needed to resize it a bit. I knew that I was going to need only his face, so I went from the height 4000px down to 1350px. I left the picure of McCoy in its original size.
My next move was to put these pictures on the black one (Edit-Copy, Edit-Paste as-New Layer) like this:
, but you can put them elsewhere, that depends on you.
Now comes the hard part. You need to get rid of the background on those pictures, because we need only their heads. You may use Path Tool, or Background Tool, or Magic Wand, or Polygon Selection Tool, or just simply erase the bits you don't want to have on the picture. So I made the picture of McCoy invisible by clicking on the eye icon on the Layer Panel:
I used the Path Tool to make the selection and then got rid of the background by hitting Delete on my keyboard. The result is something like this:
. (I've already done next step on this picture, that's why the left side of the picture is not visible.)
Now I've got the pictures ready and I saw that picture of McCoy is black on the right side, which is disturbing because Kirk's face is bright. So I selected the layer with his head and added black gradient to it. Remember to select only the foreground color for the gradient (black) and the background color leave transparent. This is what you've got now:
Next step - Blend them together: First I selected the layer with McCoy and added mask (Layer-Mask-Add Mask). In the dialoge window that pops up check White (Transparency). Take round brush tool, select black color and brush the bits that you don't want on the picture. The same goes for the layer with Kirk. Result:
Blending is done but Kirk's face still seemed too bright to me. So I added new layer (Layer-New Layer) and made black-transparent gradient on it to get more shades on his face. Remember to place this layer under the one with McCoy's face. Result:
Blending is done, here comes the coloring. Copy your picture (Edit-Copy visible) and paste it as a new layer (Edit-Paste as-New Layer). Open the Channel Mixer (I'm not sure if something like this is in Photoshop. The basic idea is to add more red to their faces, you can try Curves or Levels to do that).
Red: 200,-45,9; -7,4;
Green: 0; 100; 0;
Blue: 0; 0; 100;
Check preserve luminiosity.
Set this layer to Soft Light 40%opacity.
Now the picture has more contrast to it, but I'm still not happy. I duplicated my last layer, desaturated it and put it to Multiply 30%opacity. Result:
In this step we are going to add textures. I desided for two by Paty First is here and second here. Paste the First texture as a new layer and set it to Screen 100%opacity. Now you need to rotate it and move it under their faces like this:
. Add Second texture, set it to Screen 100%opacity. Move and rotate until you've got something like this:
. If there are some bits you don't like there, add a mask to the layer and get rid of them.
To finish this wallpaper I added three new layers, filled it with dark blue color and set them like this: layer on the top Subtract 100% and the two beneath to Screen 100%. (In Photoshop it's one exclusion layer).
That's it, you're done. I added some text, but that is up to you. And sorry for the lame grammar, I'm not native speaker.