Lemons ([info]littlelemontart) wrote,
  • Mood: artistic
  • Music: The Perishers - "Trouble Sleeping"

grissom/sara banner tutorial

Okay, so [info]unspell requested a tutorial for this banner (or something like it) a while ago, so that is what I did. And I made a new one because I didn't save the first as a .psd, and damned if I can remember the specifics of the stuff I make. :p

SO, follow the cut to learn how to make this banner (I also snuck in a quick saturation correction and sharpening tutorial):

*
*not actual size :p
**made in PS7, and fairly image-heavy, k? :)


1. Create a new file, setting the size @ 600x350 pixels, and create a new black fill layer. Pick whatever images you want to use, resize them and all that jazz, and fiddle around until you get an idea of what you want the layout to look like.



2. Now here's where you own creativity comes in. As you can see above, every image is a little different colour-wise, so any one tutorial isn't going to work for all of them. This is fine for me because I'm a fiddler, but I know this can be annoying so I'll give you a couple of hints.

First of all, take each image and play with it in its own file, then paste it back into the main file when you're happy with it.

a) a basic fix to neutralize images that are heavily colour-saturated (ie: really blue, really yellow, etc.): go to 'colour balance' (image > adjustments > colour balance) and do this:

blue: up the red and yellow
yellow/orange: up the cyan and blue
green: up the red and blue


b) for brightening the image, duplicate the base twice, set the first to screen and the second to soft light, then play with the opacities (and you can do this more than once if you need/want to). For these I also did a white layer set to 'overlay', and a light pink/lavender layer set to 'colour burn' (among other things), then lowered the opacities and fiddled until they looked good. But as I said, this is really all up to you. :)

c) here's my quick little sharpening tutorial: duplicate your image, select the bottom layer, go to filter > sharpen > sharpen edges, and sharpen edges twice. Reduce the opacity of the top layer to between 70 and 75%. Now, I usually like to do a bit of selective sharpening (ie: eyes and lips) so select a round brush at a small pixel size, select your sharpening tool, set the strength at 10% and go over the areas you want to sharpen. Voilá!

Now that you've done that, follow [info]prehistoric's tutorial for rounding the edges of an image (make sure all visible layers are merged), then 'select all' and copy/paste it back into your banner file. As you can see I made the middle image black and white, which is something else you can play around with. :)

So now you've got this:



3. Now for the fun (and comparatively easy) part. :D Brushes!

I like to use brushes under the image to give some contrast against a solid background, and the flowery brushes just look pretty. The main blob/mask brush in the center is from [info]ewanism and the flower brushes are from [info]scarsonchest.

Now take your rounded rectangle tool, pick a few colours and make some little squares wherever you want.



Now you've got this.



4.Text time! The lyrics I used are from the song "Dance Me to the End of Love" by Leonard Cohen, for those who want to know. The fonts I used are Bookman Oldstyle and AL Afternoon Delight. With the Bookman, I like to space out the letters when I'm doing banners and wallpapers so that way you can actually see what it says and it doesn't looked so squished and clumpy.

5. Now, you can't really see the text that well against the background, so go back to your rounded rectangle tool, pick a light/medium colour and draw rectangles under the text. Set them to multiply. This accomplishes two things: a) it allows you to see the text better, and b) it also gives a little added interest and texture to the whole thing. :)



6. I do like my tiny text brushes so add a few of those by [info]colorfilter, and whatever else you want (butterflies, wee!) and you're done!




So that's that. If you have any questions about something specific, ask away and I'll do my best to answer. And you may use this banner if you'd like to. :) Now go be creative! ^_^b

:: images credit to purejorja.net
:: you don't have to credit me for the tutorial unless you feel a burning desire to do so :p
:: rules
:: resources
:: friend? :)
Tags: banners, csi, tutorial

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[info]sidlechick87

June 14 2006, 19:43:33 UTC 5 years ago

I love the banner<3

[info]allagainst

June 14 2006, 20:15:32 UTC 5 years ago

a big thank you x53.
this was very helpful.

[info]__darkangel_

June 14 2006, 20:40:26 UTC 5 years ago

Woo amazing tutorial! && great subject

Jorja Fox is le sex!

[info]sidlechick87

June 14 2006, 21:02:39 UTC 5 years ago

adding to mem. thank you btw... lol

[info]littlelemontart

June 15 2006, 20:23:31 UTC 5 years ago

Cool, and you're welcome! :D

[info]_dennis_csi_

June 14 2006, 21:19:55 UTC 5 years ago

awesome tutorial great ship!! thaNks :D

[info]littlelemontart

June 15 2006, 20:24:52 UTC 5 years ago

Heh, thanks! And you're welcome, I hope it's useful! :D

[info]__darkangel_

June 14 2006, 21:48:52 UTC 5 years ago

Photobucket - Video and Image Hosting
This is what I came up with :D Great tut x

[info]littlelemontart

June 15 2006, 20:26:39 UTC 5 years ago

Ooh, shiny! :D Where's the pic on the left side, top right from? It's pretty and I don't think I've seen it before.

[info]unspell

5 years ago

[info]ziggystarduzt

June 14 2006, 23:01:31 UTC 5 years ago

ahhhh, I'm so gonna go experiment like, right now. Thanks!

oh, and darkangel, your banner r0x.

[info]velocityofsound

June 15 2006, 05:31:03 UTC 5 years ago

Me steal banner, yes.

[info]littlelemontart

June 15 2006, 20:27:15 UTC 5 years ago

Hehe, yayz! :D

[info]unspell

June 15 2006, 07:23:01 UTC 5 years ago

Thanks for doing this for me. I'll be trying this very soon.

[info]richiepeckham

October 17 2008, 05:32:46 UTC 3 years ago

I have made many pies since then but never a galette… I’ll be trying it soon as I love the crust to apple ratio.

[info]unspell

June 15 2006, 09:39:46 UTC 5 years ago

So I made one. It's not even half as good as yours. Mine sucks.
I just really want a header of Vanessa with those pictures and lyrics.
Too bad I don't like the way it turned out or I would use it. =[
But here's what I cam up with:

[info]unspell

June 15 2006, 09:43:31 UTC 5 years ago

well it's actually just the bottom three pictures that i wanted.

[info]ziggystarduzt

June 15 2006, 11:21:17 UTC 5 years ago

Ooooh, we're all showcasing our work now! Here is mine. It's actually my entry in the [info]gsr_gutterflied summer wallpaper challenge, so wish me luck... Lemon, you're the BEST! dankeshein!

Oh, and yummycherries? Your header kicks arse! Very nice indeedy! :D

[info]unspell

June 15 2006, 12:42:47 UTC 5 years ago

aw. love yours.
& thanks, i'm not a big fan of mine.
i love the one i just made like it though it's my header at my journal.

[info]unspell

June 15 2006, 12:43:11 UTC 5 years ago

Oh scratch what I said. I tried it again and came up with the header on my journal now. Thank you so much for this.

[info]littlelemontart

June 15 2006, 20:32:00 UTC 5 years ago

Yay! I'm glad it worked out for you! ANd I like the way you used different crops of the same pic, it looks really good! :D

[info]unspell

5 years ago

[info]funsized

June 15 2006, 20:09:00 UTC 5 years ago

thanks for this, I made a really cool wallpaper from this!

[info]littlelemontart

June 15 2006, 20:32:37 UTC 5 years ago

Awesome! I'm glad it was useful. :D

[info]coexist_love

June 17 2006, 01:43:06 UTC 5 years ago

thank you for this lovely tut! I am meming it but I made a wallpaper using the technique for my [info]wall_a_day claim.

title or description

[info]piecesfalling

June 18 2006, 10:56:23 UTC 5 years ago

Holy banana... Thanks for posting this! ♥ *worhsips you*

If I find the time maybe I'll create something myself, and it's always great to have a starting point when you're kind of clueless how to begin. ;)

[info]miss_plain

June 19 2006, 20:45:54 UTC 5 years ago

hi, i'm a random person asking a question

hello!

my name is amanda, and i've come across your clone high mood themes, and i was wondering if you would mind at all if i used them for my journal. and while i'm on that, i was wondering if you knew how i could make them my mood theme (i have the sponsored account)? i can't seem to find the answer anywhere else.

thanks!

amanda

[info]littlelemontart

June 20 2006, 22:35:39 UTC 5 years ago

Re: hi, i'm a random person asking a question

Hi rendom person! I'm glad you like the mood theme, and I certainly don't mind if you use it. :)

Hm, I'm not sure exactly how it would work with a sponsored account, but I would think that it would be the same as what you do to specify a mood theme with a paid account. I know you would have to so the same thing (ie: downloading the images and setting them all up like it says in my post here. It should all require the same steps, so poke around in my post there and follow the instructions, and hopefully that will work! If not, let me know and I'll see if I can figure out what's going on. :) Good luck!

[info]wickedgrdn

June 25 2006, 14:00:35 UTC 5 years ago

Random question not related to this post-LOL!

Sorry if this is inappropriate-but I was wondering if you'd like to affiliate with my icon community [info]kittykaticons? Thank you!

[info]littlelemontart

June 27 2006, 02:54:48 UTC 5 years ago

Re: Random question not related to this post-LOL!

It's not inappropriate at all! And sure, I'd love to! I'll add you in my userinfo. :)

[info]wickedgrdn

5 years ago

Deleted comment

[info]littlelemontart

July 15 2006, 05:12:18 UTC 5 years ago

Cool! I hope it's helpful for you! :D

[info]drops0fjupiter

July 24 2006, 21:08:43 UTC 5 years ago

I've been looking for wallpaper and banner tuts EVERYWHERE! This is the first one I've seen. Granted I don't really know where to look. Anyway, thank you. I'll be trying it out and I'll post what I come up with when I do. Thanks again.

[info]littlelemontart

July 25 2006, 03:59:35 UTC 5 years ago

Sweet! Well I'm glad that it's (potentially) helpful. :p You're right though, there aren't too many big tutorials out there, almost everything I've done has been through experimentation. :p

[info]citruswaves

July 24 2006, 21:36:27 UTC 5 years ago

Saving to memories!

[info]beautdisastr

July 24 2006, 21:51:12 UTC 5 years ago

my god!!! thank you!!!!

[info]littlelemontart

July 29 2006, 04:55:58 UTC 5 years ago

Haha, wow enthusiasm! :D You're welcome! ^_^b

[info]pitterxxpatter

July 24 2006, 21:58:51 UTC 5 years ago

thats really great

[info]littlelemontart

July 29 2006, 04:56:26 UTC 5 years ago

Thank you. :D

[info]_myendlessstory

July 24 2006, 22:40:49 UTC 5 years ago

this is hot. saving it to mems. :D

[info]littlelemontart

July 29 2006, 04:56:41 UTC 5 years ago

I'm glad you thinks so, thanks! ^_^b

[info]ellie2024

July 24 2006, 23:10:52 UTC 5 years ago

Sweet, adding to mems.

[info]sarahhheartsyou

July 25 2006, 00:08:33 UTC 5 years ago

definitely saving to my memories!

[info]littlelemontart

July 29 2006, 04:56:57 UTC 5 years ago

Awesome! I hope you find it useful. :)

[info]xchillyx

July 25 2006, 04:23:16 UTC 5 years ago

ohhhh thank you! i made this super fast and it didn't come out as well as I wanted it to..

ONE

i'm a Fall Out Boy fan <3

[info]littlelemontart

July 29 2006, 04:57:56 UTC 5 years ago

i'm a Fall Out Boy fan

Haha, I noticed that. :p

That's okay! The tutorial is there to be a guide, so keep trying things out and you'll eventually stumble upon something you like. ^_^b
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