Night Before Christmas : Photoshop Tutorial And WallPaper
Dainis Graveris
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!
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:
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):
To get lesser amount of white noise, go to Image–>Adjustments–>Brightness/Contrast:
Change Blending style to 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:
Let’s use linear gradient to create 3D look with colors #000b17 and #0b3972:
Ok, now we have background:
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).
Draw big stars in various sizes on the sky and use right/left brackets [ ], to change brush size :
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:
Add moon in sky, where You want, also add white outer glow to the moon.
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.
Also look at my layer order:
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).
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.
Now on the tree layer, add blending options–>gradient overlay with colors – #1b2d02 and #477407:
Duplicate layer 2 times (press CTRL+ Upper Arrow) and upper layer transform perspective a little bit:
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:
Add as much trees as You think is necessary.
Step 7: Horizontal Shadow
Let’s add shadow on trees – create a new layer, select rectangular tool with black color:
Go Filter–>Gaussian blur and blur it 100px radius. Change blending mode to overlay and reduce opacity to 64%.
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.
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%.
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!
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yungke Lee
Posted 779 days ago 25great, A very beautiful wallpaper.
.-= yungke Lee´s last blog ..朝陽科技大學資工系 =-.
Matt
Posted 790 days ago 24Nice tutorial! Does make a wonderful holiday background. I wish I had those mad skills.
Dom
Posted 796 days ago 23Things seem easy as a pie when it comes to tutorials. Will definitely give a try but also save on my computer so that I can refer later!
Thanks for the great tips!
.-= Dom´s last blog ..Top Christmas Gifts for Gadget Lovers updated Wed Dec 9 2009 1:18 am CST =-.
Web Tasarim - Grafik Tasarim
Posted 895 days ago 22this, very thank..
Your site full professional…
Hursh
Posted 940 days ago 21Amazing Book “Understanding Post-Processing – The Tutorial”, very well written, nice thought process and simply enjoyable. Look at
http://mitchellkphotos.com/ebook.html
Sheesham
Posted 1008 days ago 20Thanks for the great tutorial, was very easy to follow!
SJL Web Design
Posted 1059 days ago 19Thanks for the tutorial, very precious and easy to follow.
Emmanuel
Posted 1064 days ago 18waaao, that is a great job, i love that, Keep it up,
Lawrence77
Posted 1120 days ago 17i didn’t get the last one, that you draw using pen tool…
Normally i stuck with pen tools always,
In That stoke path which one we choose, if brush means give the accurate size for better results…
Thanks anyway great work by Dainis Graveris …. :)
:D LawrencE :D
BilluBilla
Posted 1123 days ago 16Great
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Andrew
Posted 1131 days ago 15Awsome tutorial, I realy found it usefull, realy learned some nice ways to use some tools. One question dough, how did you make those swirly lines I can’t seem to get the proper brush, blend combination. my lines look so dull. I would realy appreciate it if you could send me via email the answer or at least the psd file, can’t seem to downloadit, you ran out of badwidth.
Thanks again for the tutorial
Yustian
Posted 1148 days ago 14Wooow cool tutorial. Good job :)
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Mark deB
Posted 1153 days ago 13Your 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
Patareco
Posted 1158 days ago 12Thanks for this! I will definitely use some of these Ideas!
Merry Christmas to you all! And btw nice snow effect!
Ricks
Posted 1159 days ago 11Excellent tutorial! keep up the good work!
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Pooja
Posted 1159 days ago 10It’s very very nice tutorial….great..
Dainis Graveris
Posted 1160 days ago 9@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! :)
Tom - StandOutBlogger.com
Posted 1161 days ago 8You make it look so simple :D
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Johnson Koh
Posted 1161 days ago 7Nice tut Dainis :D There is a magical feel to it.
Counting down to another 16 days…
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Kayla
Posted 1163 days ago 6amazing tutorial! Great use of detail and images to get the information out there.
Very creative too, bookmarking!
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Dee Langdon - BloggerNewbie
Posted 1165 days ago 5You are so creative and talented. Awesome job!
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joyoge designers' bookmark
Posted 1165 days ago 4wonderful:)) thank you so much
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Salmen
Posted 1165 days ago 3Awesome
Great job….
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Dainis Graveris
Posted 1165 days ago 2@Mfz that was fast..thanks :)
Mfz
Posted 1165 days ago 1Nice tutorial! I like!
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