Night Before Christmas : Photoshop Tutorial And WallPaper

By Dainis Graveris • December 5, 2008

As I saw everybody enjoyed previous Christmas related tutorial, I decided to keep it that way and now I am offering You the next Photoshop task. Tutorial creation took me about 4 hours, so You could do this in 30min or an hour. I wish You good luck and please provide us with Your outcomes! We will use many different and useful techniques here so read everything carefully and ask if You don’t understand something.

And now I wish You good luck - and keep Your Christmas spirit going!

Advertismets

We will create something like this, click on the image to see full preview:

Step 1: Document Creation And Sky

Create a new document, I wanted this image to use later as wallpaper, so I used 1920×1200 resolution, 72 dpi.

Fill background with radial gradient (press G to activate gradient menu) with colors #1773e3 and #0b3972:

gradient-color

gradient

Step 2: Star Creation

Although we will create night effect, we need again to create some stars.

Now create new layer ( CTRL+SHIFT+N), right above the background, fill it with black ( choose black and ALT+DELETE to fill).

Go to Filter–>Add Noise and add settings like on picture below (amount 20-30):

noise

To get lesser amount of white noise, go to Image–>Adjustments–>Brightness/Contrast:

brightness-contrast

Change Blending style to Color Dodge:

color-dodge

Step 3 : Ground creation

Press CTRL+SHIFT+N to create new layer ( look at screenshot at my layers palette so it’s the same like mine).

Then select rectangular marque tool (press M) and do selection like this:

marque-tool

Let’s use linear gradient to create 3D look with colors #000b17 and #0b3972:

linear-gradient

Ok, now we have background:

linear-ground-gradient

Step 4: Adding Detailed Star

Create a new layer and grab soft brush (B), change foreground color to white ( press D to reset colors and X to switch foreground/background).

airbrush

Draw big stars in various sizes on the sky and use right/left brackets [ ], to change brush size :

sky-stars

Step 4: Adding Moon

What is Christmas night without moon? Let’s create one!

Create a new layer, select from custom shape tool - “Crescent moon”, if You don’t have shapes like me, do this bonus step:

load-shapes

Add moon in sky, where You want, also add white outer glow to the moon.

custom-shape-moon

layer-style-outer-glow

Step 5: Hills And Downs

In the fifth step we will add some hills and downs, but I won’t repeat this step, techniques is the same as in my previous tutorial - Beautiful Christmas Vision Tutorial And Wallpaper, start from the step 2 there.

hills-downs

Also look at my layer order:

layer-structure

Step 6: Adding Trees

Now let’s create some trees to make look our scene more interesting.

Add some guidelines to create more precise results, create new layer, then grab pen tool and try to do something like this:

(You can get guidelines, by pressing CTRL+R to get rulers. Just click and pull from rulers to get them).

tree-pen-tool

Now CTRL+Click on path, and fill it with any color pressing ALT+DELETE ( foreground color):

If You don’t see Your path palette - go Windows–>Path.

path-tree

Now on the tree layer, add blending options–>gradient overlay with colors - #1b2d02 and #477407:

layer-style-tree-gradient

Duplicate layer 2 times (press CTRL+ Upper Arrow) and upper layer transform perspective a little bit:

perspective-tree

Ok, now holding SHIFT select all three layers and group them pressing CTRL+G. You can also smudge trees to add texture, but I won’t do that this time.

With all three layers still selected, resize trees to much smaller size - CTRL+T and holding shift resize.

We will use these trees in background, so we need many trees. Just press on the group with CTRL+Upper Arrow to create more duplicates and position trees like in the picture below:

tree-background

Add as much trees as You think is necessary.

scene-with-trees

Step 7: Horizontal Shadow

Let’s add shadow on trees - create a new layer, select rectangular tool with black color:

black-gaussian-blur

Go Filter–>Gaussian blur and blur it 100px radius. Change blending mode to overlay and reduce opacity to 64%.

shadow-layer

Step 8: Adding Global Colors and Shadows

Create a new layer on the top of all layers and add some colorful radial gradient, change blending mode to overlay.

colorful-gradient

Adding Shadows:

Let’s add some more shadows - use Elliptical marque tool and feather 100px. Create a selection and then press CTRL+SHIFT+I to invert selection and fill it with black ( ALT+DELETE). Change blending mode opacity to 75%.

selection-shadow

Okay, we are already finished, I added just a few more effects:

1. I added those swirly lines at the moon, with pen tool –> stroke path.. –> simulate pressure.

2. Also I added two trees on the front side in the same way as I added background trees, I just didn’t want to go through whole process again.

Hope You enjoyed this tutorial as much as I did!

Download *.psd file

Download wallpaper in 1920×1200 resolution

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Categories: Tutorials
Tags: christmas, photoshop, training, tutorial

40 Responses to “ Night Before Christmas : Photoshop Tutorial And WallPaper ”

Mfz Dec 5th, 2008 at 2:52 am

Nice tutorial! I like!

Mfzs last blog post : Ieejot ritmā
Dainis Graveris Dec 5th, 2008 at 2:53 am

@Mfz that was fast..thanks
Salmen Dec 5th, 2008 at 3:32 am

Awesome
Great job….

Salmens last blog post : Wordpress 2.7 RC1 è Disponibile….
joyoge designers' bookmark Dec 5th, 2008 at 3:43 am

wonderful:)) thank you so much

joyoge designers’ bookmarks last blog post : Smoky Website Designs for Your Inspiration!
Dee Langdon - BloggerNewbie Dec 5th, 2008 at 2:36 pm

You are so creative and talented. Awesome job!

Dee Langdon - BloggerNewbies last blog post : Do You Think Blogging Is Becoming Over Saturated?
Photoshop Tutorials Dec 6th, 2008 at 9:22 am

Wonderful work. Is the brightest star is Sirius?
Yılbaşı grafikleri | yücel eroğlu Dec 7th, 2008 at 6:27 am

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Kayla Dec 7th, 2008 at 8:15 am

amazing tutorial! Great use of detail and images to get the information out there.

Very creative too, bookmarking!

Kaylas last blog post : Web design tips: The basics of color on the web
Vasto Vazio » Blog Archive » Links festivos de design natalino Dec 8th, 2008 at 1:23 am

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Johnson Koh Dec 9th, 2008 at 7:25 am

Nice tut Dainis There is a magical feel to it.
Counting down to another 16 days…

Johnson Kohs last blog post : 22 Self Portraits of Great Artists
Tom - StandOutBlogger.com Dec 9th, 2008 at 11:17 pm

You make it look so simple
Tom - StandOutBlogger.coms last blog post : 4 Ways To Develop Your Unique Blogging Style
Dainis Graveris Dec 10th, 2008 at 4:42 am

@Johnon thanks again I should use just a little darker colors, to create more serious look. My mistake..yes..soon magical night will come…oh..silly me..:)

@Tom thanks for passing by..and that’s great - because it is simple!
Pooja Dec 11th, 2008 at 9:14 am

It’s very very nice tutorial….great..
Ricks Dec 11th, 2008 at 10:09 pm

Excellent tutorial! keep up the good work!

Rickss last blog post : Wordpress 2.7 has officially been released
Patareco Dec 12th, 2008 at 3:16 am

Thanks for this! I will definitely use some of these Ideas!
Merry Christmas to you all! And btw nice snow effect!
nestor felicilda Dec 16th, 2008 at 2:55 pm

bro…very nice i hope make more ok…thank a lot
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Mark deB Dec 17th, 2008 at 7:02 am

Your talent and your works are all so very, very inspiring. I am a pipe-organist, but I have ALWAYS had this craving to draw…create.I’ve also been an aspiring & AVID landscape photographer for 20 years….but did not have the proper tools until the computer age brought us so many powerful tools and programs allowing us to blend, weave, layer all forms of media. I found your site through Google and the Digital Blasphemy art-link. Now I MUST put music to the one RAR archive of 25 designs that just took my breath away. THANK YOU for ZAPPING me into a FABULOUS Spirit of Christmas. Be Well and may the many Blessings of the One who created that spark of genius + creative talent within you, continue to inspire your awesome works with blessings and with unimaginable success and happiness! Feliz Navidad from New Mexico USA
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Rosa Elemil Dec 17th, 2008 at 7:01 pm

very nice…. i lke a lot
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Thanks for that. Very seasonal!!
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Yustian Dec 22nd, 2008 at 6:53 am

Wooow cool tutorial. Good job
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jose luis Dec 24th, 2008 at 6:15 pm

Que la navidad les permita encontrarse con sus amigos y familiares para
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muy buenos momentos!!!
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