Assignment 1 - Step by step

This post will feature methods and step-by-steps of making my e-wallpaper. The theme choosen for my e-wallpaper is Penang Dragon Boat festival. I chose this festival because I'm attracted to the boats design and would like to acknowledge people the existence of this festival. Please refer to my previous posts for more information regarding the festival. So, let's get started!

Below are the pictures choosen for the e-wallpaper.


I start the project by opening up a new file according to the project's specification, that is, A4 size.
The first step I would do is creating appropiate background for the e-wallpaper. What comes in my mind is oriental pattern and shapes on an old paper. So, I open up a file containing a texture of old paper, which is downloaded from mayang.com.
This is how the paper looks like.The paper is quite smaller than the original file size. Therefore, I used free transfrom or Ctrl + T on the paper and enlarge it until it has the same size with the file. And then, I downloaded an oriental pattern from dezignus.com and put the pattern into a new layer positioned above the layer containing the paper texture. The result looks like this:


The same method is used to resize the pattern. Afterwards, I clicked on the lock transparent pixel on the layer containing the pattern to recolour it with a new one.

Next, I lowered the opacity of the layer so that the pattern can blend well with the background. Now, onto the main part of the wallpaper, that is, pictures and images. Before that, I created a shape on the wallpaper with pen tool and filled it with white colour. The option for fill colour with pen tool can be found by right-clicking your mouse.



Again, I lowered the opacity of the shape. Then, I inserted a number of images within the shape area. This part will be a bit tricky and confusing but I will try to explain as clear as possible.
First, I put an image accordingly and I cropped the picture using rectangular selection tools and Ctrl + X to fit in well within the shape. Note that I increased the opacity of the shape.The reason why I increased the opacity is to allow full selection on the shape when using magic wand tool, which is the next step I used to fit the picture into the shape. After that, I right-clicked and chose the option 'Select Inverse' to make the selection went outside of the shape area.
Afterwards, I cropped the picture and the result looked like this:


I did some rendering on the picture so that it looked neat and tidy. Same process are used with the other pictures. Then, when I am done rendering all the pictures neatly, I merged the layers of all the images. Before I forgot, I used Blur tool for the leftmost pictures so that the picture, which is actually made up of 2 images, blend well with each other.

New layer is created and some lines are added to give out the dynamic feel on the wallpaper. Also, I used the special effect called 'outer glow' for the lines in which can be found by clicking the 'fx' button on the lower part of the layer panel. I did some adjustments on colour balance to make the image appeared warmer.

Next, I duplicated the layer containing the merged images, put it above the original one, clicked on filter -> blur -> gaussian blur and change the layer mode to Overlay. The images became quite nostalgic and warm looking.

Now that the images part are done, it's time to put some text on the wallpaper. I typed in 'Penang Dragon Boat fetisval at the left lower part of the wallpaper. Then, I manipulated the shape of the text to make it look interesting.
For the finishing touch, I lowered down the opacity of the background colour and voila! Oh yes, not to forget the flattening image part, this is how you do it:
Click on the button shown above and choose the option 'Flatten image'.


That is all for my e-wallpaper project. Until next time.