Learn to make a beautiful winter wallpaper with snowflakes and hills of snow. This is a great Photoshop tutorial for making desktop wallpaper or holiday cards.

Before following this tutorial, visit my previous tutorial, Learn to Make Snowflakes in Photoshop.and make at least 3 different snowflakes.



Step 1. Open a blank white canvas, 5000 x 4000 pixels and paste your snowflakes onto seperate layers. Make all of the snowflake layers invisible.

Step 2. Create a new layer and name it "Hills". Set your background color to a very light blue and the foreground color to a darker shade of gray-blue. Make a linear gradient from the top of the canvas to the bottom. Then resize the gradient layer to 1/3-1/2 of the page, depending on your preferences.

Step 3. Go to Filter > Distort > Liquify and use the warp tool with a brush pressure of 50 to make hills out of the blue gradient. Press OK.

Step 5. Make one of the snowflake layers visible again, name it "Snowflake 1" and resize the layer to fill the entire image. It may blur, but don't worry about that, we'll fix it in the next step. Place it off center.

Step 6. Duplicate Snowflake 1 and keep the default name, "Snowflake 1 copy". Go to Filters> Blur> Gaussian Blur. Set the Radius to 100 and press OK, and select the two snowflake layers and merge them together.

Step 7. Move the Snowflake layer behind the Hills layer and change the blending mode to Overlay.Step 8. Use the Magic Wand tool to select the hills and delete the part of the snowflake that is on top of them. With the Hills layer selected, mess with Levels to add some more dimension to it and set the blending mode to Multiply.

Step 9. Make the rest of your snowflake layers visible and duplicate each three times so that you have four of each. Resize each to different sizes, none larger than 1/12 of the canvas size.

Step 10. Rotate each layer so that the snowflakes point in different directions and then move them into the positions you want them to be in. Make sure that some of them are partially on top of the hills layer and add more snowflakes if you want to, as I did here.

Step 11. Merge the Snowflake layers and change the blending mode to Overlay. Erase the parts of the snowflakes that are on top if the Hills layer, so that the snowflakes appear to be disappearing behind the hills.

Step 12. Duplicate the Snowflakes Layer and give the new layer a Gaussian Blur with a radius of 20. Set both of the snowflake layers to an opacity of 50%.

Step 13. Put some finishing touches on it, and you have a Winter Wonderland wall paper!

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You guys may have noticed that lately I've been branching into broader topics than I usually talk about here. Over the next few months, I'll be doing even more of that. We'll be discussing photography, graphic design, products and services having to do with both, and lots of other areas of art. I'd love to hear from my readers about any suggestions that you might have about topics that you'd like me to explore. So please, leave any suggestions you have in a comment.

I appreciate everyone's input and I can't wait to hear what you all have to say!

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Halloween USA is different than Halloween in any other country around the world. We have taken the traditional Celtic celebration of Samhain and turned it into a consumer-driven, costume-covered, candy-greedy holiday. We start our Halloween decorating a month or more ahead of time, buying Halloween masks and themed Halloween jewelry, just for fun.

The Gini's Magic Shop features a large variety of items with this Halloween spider design and many other designs that I've created. The shop includes items that are highly customizable, available in all different colors and styles, and purchased products almost always ship within 24 hours.

Please come for a visit and add to your Halloween collection!

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The time has come to look my computer screen in the webcam and confess. I am a self-proclaimed Photoshop Addict.

I love Photoshop. From the Shape tool to the Liquify filter and beyond, I LOVE it.

Now having said that, when I was searching in Google and came across the word "Fotoshop" in the search results, I felt almost offended that someone could make a mistake like that. But it turns out that I am the one who made a mistake, because guess what? It wasn't misspelled at all.

Fotoshop is a piece of graphic editing software that has nothing at all to do with Adobe's Photoshop. Who'd a thunk it? Apparently, some people also spell it Fhotoshop, which actually is a misspelling.

Anyway, after my little discovery I decided to go on a little exploration into the secrets of this program. Everything I've read about Fotoshop gratis has been about it's a fun and easy to use graphic editor. I've read about how it has great tools for creating patterns and merge photos.

But guess what? I'll never know any of this first-hand because I've tried to download Fotoshop free from three different sources, and every time I try to open the Fotoshop program, an error comes up. It could be a great editor, but I guess we'll never know.

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Hi again you guys! I just wanted to let you know how my project went and show you my final design. It was mounted on a black mat board so that the black becomes more negative space. This is what I came up with.

Let me know what you think!

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Well, it's the start of a new semester and I'm in my second week of my Graphic Design for Advertising class, which I love so far! We're working on a project that involves creating a poster to sell a specific font; in my case Bodoni, using positive and negative space. We're using the typography as shapes to show the personality of the font family. I've come up with 20 different basic possibilities for my poster and need to narrow it down to three. Grrr. Coming up with the designs was easy, but choosing which are the best? There are several that I really like but I can't seem to narrow it down to three, so I need your help.


It's poll time! Below you'll see 8 different designs ( which are my favorites of the 20) with corresponding numbers. Vote for your favorite and I'll choose the three with the most votes as my best options.

A few things to consider while voting:
The poster should

• Show a strong sense of positive and negative space (you should be able to see the background shapes as easily as the letters themselves).
• Show the font's personality: elegance, romance, and a classic feel.
• And it should make you want to use Bodoni!
  

Happy voting and thanks for the help! Voting ends on September 16.

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In this vampire Photoshop tutorial, I'll show you how to turn one of my favorite literary characters, the very human Bella Swan (Kristen Stewart) into newborn vampire, Bella Cullen. At the same time you can learn how to become a vampire in Photoshop yourself. Bella Swan/Cullen is a main character in Stephenie Meyers' Twilight Saga. Besides, who doesn't want to see Bella Swan as a vampire?

We will go over how to use Photoshop to
-Smooth Skin
-Remove Blemishes and Lines
-Create a Glowing Complexion
-Change Eye Color
-Alter Facial Features

One thing my wonderful readers probably don't know about me: I'm a huge fan of Twilight. I mean, seriously huge. I identify with Bella, I love Edward, and I'm not too crazy about Jacob (sorry, Team Jacob).
So, I decided to incorporate my love for Twilight with my love for digital art by turning Bella Swan; human, into Bella Cullen; vampire.

Before starting, I want to make it very clear that this is MY vision of how Bella will look as a vampire, based on Stephenie Meyers' description in her novel, Breaking Dawn. This is not an official preview of how Bella will look in Breaking Dawn, the movie; it's just how I picture her.

Here is how to make a Photoshop vampire, for all of you who have asked "how do I make myself look like a vampire in photoshop?"

Step 1: Choose A Photo. Open up the image that you want to use to make a vampire in Photoshop. Make sure that it is a high-quality photograph to begin with.

Step 2: Smoothing Skin. Vampires have perfect skin, so we start out by using the same technique that I use for many of the portraits that I work on. For step-by-step instructions on skin smoothing, check out How to Make Skin Beautiful in Photoshop. For the purposes of this tutorial, I'll simplify the instructions.

Use a selection tool to select Bella's face, neck, and other areas of skin. Then feather the selection slightly so the edges are lightly softened.

Right click on the selection, choose "Layer via Copy", and name the new layer "Skin".

Make the background layer invisible and erase Bella's major facial features from the Skin layer (eyes, defining parts of her nose, mouth, etc). Then the layer should look like the image below. I know that at this point, the image looks freakier than any vampire, but work with me here.

Make the background layer visible again and go to Filters> Blur> Gaussian Blur. Choose a radius of 6, apply it to the skin layer, and set the Opacity of the skin layer to 70%. Now Bella has much smoother skin.

Step 3. Enhancing the Complexion. Lets make Bella nice and pale like a good vampire Mwahaha. Set the Blending Mode of the Skin layer to Screen.

Now we've kissed any suntan that Bella may have had goodbye, but she still has too much color. She's dead, remember? So with the skin layer still selected, go to Enhance> Adjust Color> Adjust Hue/Saturation, and drag the Saturation bar to -80.

I think she still has a blush that's a little too pink for a vampire, so I'm going to select the area on her cheek and temple and reduce the saturation even further.

Step 4. Perfecting the Skin. Duplicate the background layer so that the original will be preserved. On the top duplicated layer, remove any blemishes and freckles on her skin using the Healing Brush. I also used the Healing Brush over the lines on her neck. This could have been done before I smoothed the skin, but I think it comes out more realistically this way.

Here is a close up of before and after the blemish removal.

Step 5. Enhancing facial features. Personally, I think that Kristen Stewart is naturally very beautiful, but as a vampire Bella is supposed to look different than her human self in more ways than skin tone, so I've made some adjustments to her features too.

Working on the top background layer, use a selection tool to select the mouth and the area around it and feather the selection by 5 pixels.

Use the Liquify Filter (Filters> Distort> Liquify) to enlarge and reshape the lips. Don't overdo it, we still want her to look like Bella. As you can see here, I plumped her lips a bit and up-turned them slightly.
Repeat the same process on the eyes and go to Enhance> Adjust Sharpness and increase the sharpness slightly. Then use the Smudge Tool in the Liquify filter to enhance the arch of her eyebrow.

Here is a close-up comparison of before and after the changes to the facial features. The differences are subtle, but important to Bella's transformation into an inhumanly beautiful vampiress.

Step 6. Eye Color. Kristen Stewart has green eyes, but Bella the vampire has red eyes. So, make a new layer, select the iris and pupil of each eye, feather the selection by 2 pixels, and fill the selections with red paint on the blank layer. Change the blending mode of the new layer to "Color" and then play with Levels until you've got it right. I also enhanced the catch lights in her eyes using the Dodge tool, but you may prefer not to. Once you're happy with the eyes, merge them down onto the top background layer. Ooh, sinister. Now she's really starting to look like a newborn vamp.

Step 7. Making her look tired. Throughout the Twilight Series, it is stated that the vampires often have circles under their eyes, as though they haven't slept or are recovering from a broken nose. Especially when they're thirsty. Well guess what? Bella's thirsty.

Create a new layer and use a dark grayish red and a soft paint brush to draw semicircles underneath the eyes. Add a Gaussian Blur to soften the colored area and then erase any areas that are overlapping the eye itself. Lower the Opacity of the layer until the circles appear realistic, then merge the layer down onto the top background layer.

Step 8. Finishing Touches: Shadows and Highlights. To really bring the image together, we need to add highlights and shadows in key locations. It will add depth and enhance the glowing quality of her skin. There are many ways to add highlights to a photo, but here is how I did it.

First I create a new layer. Then I use the Selection Brush to draw out the areas that I want to highlight and fill the selection with a very light shade of pink/peach.

Next, I lower the Opacity to 50% and erase any areas that blurred outside the areas that I want highlighted.

Lastly, Use the Dodge and Burn tools to bring out the highlights in Bella's hair and to make shadows more dramatic.

And that, ladies and gentlemen is Bella Swan as a vampire
Tune in soon for the creation of Renesmee. Any thoughts on who should play her part?


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Here you can follow this step-by-step tutorial, learn how to make realistic shadows in Photoshop.

















Step 1. Select the area outside the object that you'd adding a shadow to, and then inverse the selection so that the object itself is selected.


Step 2. Copy the selection onto a new layer by right-clicking on it and choosing "Layer Via Copy".


Step 3. Go to Enhance> adjust Color> Adjust Hue/Saturation. Lower the "Lightness" bar as far as it will go, until the object is completely black.


Step 4. In order to decide where and how your shadow will be positioned, you need to choose where your light source is. If the light source is above the object, the shadow will be below the object. If the light source is on the right of the object, then the shadow will extend to the left. The farther the distance between the light source and the object, the farther the shadow should extend.

Here are a few examples. The blue arrows show the approximate path of light and shadow.

Click on the Free Transform box around the shadow layer, then right-click on it and choose "Distort". Clicking the top center point on the transform box, drag the shadow into the desired length and angle you want. You may also need to try using Perspective which you can find on the same menu as the Distort option. Here I've shown the light path that I chose, along with the corresponding shadow.

Step 5. Add a Gaussian Blur to the shadow layer with a radius of approx. 20 pixels.


Step 6. Change the Opacity of the shadow layer to 40% and then select the entire object, like in the first step. Then click on the shadow layer in the Layer's Palette and hit delete. This should erase the selected are of the shadow, leaving the image looking like an object that is casting a natural shadow.

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