Welcome To Tutorial Info

Step 1: Draw Lines in Illustrator

We’re starting off in Illustrator to draw the lines. Create a new document with the dimensions 1920×1200. The other settings don’t really matter since the vectors will be imported into Photoshop anyway. Draw a nice smooth curve with a 4px black stroke. Draw another curve, this time with a 1px black stroke.


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Step 2: Blending the curves

Go to Object > Blend > Blend Options and set the Blending Steps to 12. Now select the two curves and hit Object > Blend > Make.
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REPEAT STEP 1 and 2 to make another set of curves. Play with the settings until you’re happy with the outcome.
Step 3: Importing the curves into Photoshop

Create a new document in Photoshop. Make it 1920×1200 large and fill the background with a dark grey (I used #161616). Go to Illustrator and drag-and-drop the curves into your Photoshop document. There’s no need to expand the curves. Photoshop will do it for you.
Step 4: Applying Gradient and Glow Effect

Select one of the layers containing the curves and go to the Layer Style Menu. Start of with setting Fill to 0% (Blending Options: Custom). Apply the settings shown below. Don’t worry too much about the gradient colours at the moment. We will adjust the overall colour scheme of the design at a later step.
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Right-Click on the layer in the layers palette and choose “Copy Layer Style”. Select the second curves layer and select “Paste Layer Style”. Your image should look similar to the one below.
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Step 5: Copy the Curves + Composition

Select the first curves layer and copy it a couple times. Then move the individual layers like I did in the picture below. Group the layers.
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Repeat Step 5 with the second curves layer. As you can see I moved the around a bit to get a nicer composition.
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To get a smoother cut-off I decided to use a gradient layer mask (on the whole group). Set the gradient to black-to-white and apply it on the mask.
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Step 6: Clouds and Colours

Create a new layer on top of everyting. Make sure that Foreground and Background colours are set to Black and White respectively by pressing “D”. Go to Filter > Render > Clouds. Set the Blending Mode to Hue and enter the Layer Style menu. Go to the gradient option and select a colour scheme you like. Set the angle to 135 degrees and make sure to set the Blend Mode to Overlay.
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Step 7: Add Textures

Open 2 concrete texures and place them on top of the Background layer. I used textures from the Free Urban Texture Pack. Set one blending mode to Multiply and the other to Overlay.
Step 8: Add Circles

Create a new layer and draw some different sized circles using the Ellipse Tool. Make sure to use the “Shape Layer” mode and select “Add to shape layer” from the menu. Hold down the Shift-key while drawing to get perfect circles.
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Step 9: Make Layer Masks

Cmd-Click on the circle layer it in the layers palette to make a selection, then hide the layer. Now select the first Texture layer and hit the mask button. With your selection still intact go to Selection > Inverse. Activate the second Texture layer and hit the mask button again.
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Step 10: Final Image and Tweaks

That’s all there is to making a wallpaper like the one for December 08. Add a bit of text if you want to. For other colour schemes you can always add a Hue Adjustment layer.
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