Grunge Wallpaper

This is a simple but great way to make wallpapers of mostly any kind. Lets get started.

1) Open New Document of the size of your screen or whatever size you like. I used 1280×1024 px. Background doesn’t matter.
2) Right click on your Background layer and go to Blending Options -> Gradient Overlay and apply settings as shown below

3) Create a New layer (Layer -> New -> Layer ). Now take your favorite Grunge Brush and brush around but do not touch the middle section. When you are finished Right click on the layer go to Blending Options change your Blend Mode to Color Burn. You should get something similar to what I have below.

4) add new layer with a Paint Bucket Tool fill the background with a brownish color. I used #83542e. Then Add Layer Mask to the layer ( At the bottom of your layer panel looks like a sheet of paper with a circle drawn on it). Then go to Filter -> Render -> Clouds. After you have done that right click on the layer go Blending Options and change blend mode to Color Burn. You should have something similar to this.

5) Take Custom Shape Tool. Take the tool named Registration Target 2. And place it so you don’t see the circumference but only whats inside and place it in the middle. Go to Blending Options and change Blend Mode to Soft Light and Opacity to around 50%. You should have something like this.

6) Now we will add the flower. You can pick any bright flower you like for this tutorial. But if you would like to use the same flower I used you can download it from here: rose.png. Create a new layer and place your flower in the middle. Then go to Blending Options and apply Outer Glow with the settings shown below.

And get this

7) We are almost done. Create a new layer and place it under your the layer with a flower. I picked a simple brush with flowers and brushed around the middle area. You can choose any brush that will make your wallpaper look beautiful.

 

Water surface effect

Open a new file in Photoshop. My size is 300×300.
Set foreground color as a dark-blue, background as white.

Filter-Render-Clouds:

Let’s turn our clouds into water ripple.
Filter-Distort-Ripple
and put amount-999, size- large:

That’s what you should get:

Now we’ll make it more realistic. Repeat
Filter-Distort-Ripple,
but change size to medium, and leave amount of 999:

Water surface is ready!

Fire Effects

Start a new RGB document (size around 600×600) filled with black background.
- Use the type tool and create a new text in WHITE and position the text centered in the lower half of the document

Now create a new empty layer by clicking on the create new layer icon

Now Press CTRL+ALT+SHIFT+E, this will combine all layers to the new layer.

Now roate the new layer 90CCW. (Edit->Transform->Rotate 90CCW)

Now apply the Wind Filter to this new layer (Filter->Styleize->Wind)
Method: Wind, Direction: From the Right.

Press CTRL+F 2 times to reapply the filter 2 more times.

Now rotate the image back to normal: Edit->Transform->Rotate 90CW

Now go to Filter->Blur->Gaussian Blur: enter 5.0 pxNow go to Image->Hue/Saturation Check the “Colorize” Box. Set Hue to 40 and Saturation to 100

Now Duplicate this layer, to do this, right click on the layer and choose “Duplicate Layer”
You should now have this:

Now apply some Hue saturation to the new duplicated layer:
Image->Adjustments->Hue Saturation:
Set Hue: -40

Now set the duplicated layer’s blending mode to: Color Dodge

Now go to Layer->Merge Down To merge the 2 layers together.

Now to create our flames, we go to Filter->Liquidfy. Now with the Warp tool selected, set brush size to between 40 and 50, and brush pressure to around 40 to 45.

Now just click and drag from the white edge of the text to wiggle your way into the orange to create the flame.

Next, change your brush size to about 30, and pressure to about 30, and go for 2nd round of creating your flame.

Once your happy with your flame, hit OK.

Now move the original text layer to the top on the layers pallete, and change it’s color to black.

Now go to Layer->Rasterize->Type to rasterize the text layer. Now use the Eraser tool and select the 200px SOFT brush, and erase out the top half of the text.

Now, if you want to create a reflection, do a selection about half of the bottom part of the flame.

Press CTRL+SHIFT+C to copy, then CTRL+P to paste this as a new layer

Now go to Edit->Transform->Flip Vertical, Then use the move tool to move the layer down just below the text. Set this layer’s opacity to 20%. You can use the eraser tool with 200px soft brush to erase out the bottom part of the reflection.

3D Text …

Ok, lets start a new document, the document size depends on how big/much text you want to create using this 3D method.

With your new document, lets create your 3D text. Im using Arial Black, size 300px. (Note: DO NOT use the “Faux Bold” option on this text or the next step will fail).

Now we need to transform the text, in text mode, we cannot transform much of the text, we can rasterize the text, this will turn the text into bitmap image, the downsize is that when we transform the text, we will lose its crispiness. Another method we can use is to convert the text into vector shapes, so lets go ahead and do that. Layer->Text->Convert to shape.

Now go to Edit->transform->Perspective. and pull the right handlers at the bottom outward so it creates a perspective look.

Now you can do futher transforming by going to Edit->Transform->Skew/Distort, just transform until you are happy with your text.

Now, while holding down CTRL+ALT, press the UP arrow, as you will notice, this duplicates the layer, and move it up by 1 pixel. now do this about 35 times, after that, you will get something like this:

 

Now, what you need to do is marge ALL the “duplicated” layer together, EXCEPT the top one.

To do this, make sure you select the 2nd layer to the top and link it to ALL the layers underneath it together like so…(DO NOT link to the background layer)

Now just go to Layer->Merge Linked. This will merge all the bottom layers as one, leaving you with 1 layer on top, and 1 on the bottom (and of course, the background layer)

Now apply all these layer styles (Layer->Layer Styles-> … )to the bottom layer:

Here’s another one, using a different Pattern Overlay setting to the above

Brick Effect

 Step 1: Create a new 800×800 pixels document. Use the Gradient Tool(G) to make a background like this

Step 2: Set your text color to red (#FF0000) and use the Horizontal Type Tool(T) to type anything you like

Step 3: Press Ctrl – left click on your text layer to select the text

 Step 4: Go to Filter > Sketch > Note Paper and use the default settings (Image Balance 25, Graininess 10, Relief 11

Step 5: Go to Filter > Stylize > Tiles and use these settings

Press Ctrl-F to repeat this effect. Now press Ctrl-D to deselect the text. After this step, we get

Give Bevel and Emboss effects and brick text is ready (optional)

High Tech Buttons

1) New Document, Grab the Elliptical Marquee Tool (M) using the shift key draw a round

circle fill it with blue here I used hex: #00AEEF

2) Select the round circle then create a new layer. Use the mouse right click on the empty

selection and choose stroke setting: ( 6px, inside and white as color) press ok then go to

Filter –> Blur –> Gaussian Blur setting 3.2 press ok. Change the layer effect to soft light

and adjust the opacity of the layer to 50%.

3) Go to the original circle layer and load its selection, then create a layer go to select

–> Modify –> Contract and contract it by 3 pixels. In the empty layer right click and

choose stroke and use these settings 4 px, inside, and white color with the selection still

loaded go to Select –> Modify –> Contract by 1 and gaussian blur it by 2.

4) Blur the selection twice and then
erease the lower bottom to give it
the fade effect

5) Duplicate the layer, Grab
the Gradient Tool (G)
Set the foreground color to white then change your gradient option to “foreground to

transparent” then
apply a vertical gradient starting
from the top of the selection
to the center of button check image.

6) Make a circle with a darker
blue. Check the image for the
blending and contour.

7) Make a small circle inside it,
then play around with it with
different blending till you get
something you like.