Unusual wallpapers based on microscope slides, free to download...
Gore Tutorial: Super Super Halloween Special!
This is a really simple tutorial which can be made in a few minutes with filters, but has great potential for advanced users. Simply follow the steps below:
1: Start off with a canvas with sides twice as long as the final image you want. For example, if you want a 800x800 final image (what I will aim for), create a 1600x1600 canvas.
Press the D key. Set your primary colour to 50% grey: to do this, click the formost colour out of the two on your tools palette (on the left) and then type 0, 0 and 50 into the H, S and B boxes respectively.
Go Filter || Render || Clouds.
2: Go Image || Image Size and set the width and height of the image to 50% (notice that the image you are now working with is the desired size). This bit is really really important. Now go Filter || Brush Strokes || Ink Outline, and enter 4, 25 and 14 as the variables. Go Filter || Artistic || Plastic Wrap. Enter 15, 5 and 10 as the variables.
The image opposite has been enlarged to show detail.
3: Now we need to set the correct colour: press ctrl/cmd - U to open the hue/saturation window, and tick the "colorize" checkbox. Set it to a nice red, not too dark or saturated for now. I left the hue at 0, set the saturation to around 45 and set the lightness to around -15. Now press ctrl/cmd - L to open the levels window, and move the sliders to the position shown here. The image should now look like the one opposite; use the history to go back and re-do this stage if necessary.
The image opposite has been enlarged to show detail.
4: Finally, go Filter || Noise || Dust and Scratches and set the sliders to 1 and 150. If at this stage you want to change the "red-ness" (saturation) you can press ctrl-U again and move the saturation slider. I have turned the saturation down by around 10 in the opposite image. All done! Now you can apply this to your web layouts, wallpapers, pumpkins, whatever.
The image opposite has been enlarged to show detail.
Advanced users The image that you have so far can be used as a base for many of the artistic filters, giving great and unique effects. To see an example of this, see the gallery entry here. To use many different artistic filters on the image at once, as in the gallery example, duplicate the layer and create a new transparent layer underneath it. Turn the duplicate layer into a clipping layer of the transaprent layer, so that it disappears. Now use the gradient tool to create fading circles and areas, which will make the duplicate layer visible in those areas. Appl new filters to the duplicate layer, and repeat!
