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Here is an interesting tutorial how to create Avatar movie wallpaper. A lot of people were impressed by watching this movie and I’m not an exception. I am insanely obsessed with it. That’s why I decided to make the tutorial how to create wallpaper on this great movie.

In the beginning you should create a new document sized 1900х1200 pixels and fill it with black color.

Then I would like to bring the picture one of the heroes to our canvas. You can find different pictures on Google Images or feel free to use mine. Open up the picture and using Ctrl+C copy it , then go back to the main canvas and press Ctrl+V to paste copied fragment. Move this fragment to right lower corner.

As you can see the picture less then canvas, in this way press Ctrl+T and hold Shift button to enlarge the picture pro rata. The result should look as mine:

After increasing the image sharpness has become worse. We can fix this problem by duplicating current layer with Ctrl+J and Filter > Other > High Pass with next parameters:

After that change layer mode to Overlay and you will get the next result:

Ok, continue our tutorial. Merge current layer with previous and move new layer to the right as shown on my screenshot below.

Then to change color balance a little bit to get the picture with the same hue as on advertising posters apply Image > Adjustments > Layers with similar settings to these:

The result should be next:

Ok, move to the next step. We have to make eyes color more bright and contrasting, to add accent on the picture. For this effect apply Polygonal Lasso Tool and create selection as on my picture below:

Holding Shift button select the second pupil of the eye area.

After that use Select > Modify > Feather to feather selection about 2 pixels. Then apply Image > Adjustments > Color Balance with similar settings to these:

You can see the result below:

Remove the selection with Ctrl+D. Looks good, isn’t it? Then create a new one layer, select the Brush Tool and a soft round brush about 400 pixels to hide image borders like on my picture you can see below:

Move to the next step. After that we need to add the text. Select the Horizontal Type Tool and write out the name of the film with different color, it doesn’t matter. The set up next text presets for this text line:

The result should be next:

In the above image I’ve used Papyrus as my font of choice. Actually, it is commercial, but if you don’t have it, you can easily find a good alternative. Ok, after that apply Outer Glow, Bevel and Emboss, Contour and Gradient Overlay layer styles to this layer:

Now we have something like this:

And the last one thing that we have to do to add glowing balls on the background. How we can do this? Ok, I will show you the easer way. Select the Brush Tool and a hard round brush about 15 pixels. Then click the button ‘Toggle the Brushes palette’ on the Options Bar to open brush presets window or by choosing Window > Brushes. Here we can see a couple of presets. Now, set up the following presets for current brush:

After that add a few strokes to the background on the new layer using color of #c9eaff.

Duplicate this layer with Ctrl+J and apply Filter > Blur > Gaussian Blur with similar settings to these:

Merge current layer with previous.

After that apply Outer Glow layer style to new received layer.

The result should be next:

Ok, to finish off the tutorial create new layer and fill the left upper corner with black to transparent gradient.

Ok, we are done! Enjoy your own cool looking wallpapers!

And this is my result:

Support Material

1. Pyramids image
2. Old paper texture
3. Edistys Font (free)
4. Folded Stained Paper Texture by Ty Sintaxera

Step 1

Open a new document in Photoshop. The size I chose is 1500×1000 pixels. Paste in the Pyramid image. Scale and rotate it (Press Ctrl+T to activate the transform tool).

Step 2

Now we have to create a strong contrast. So duplicate the image and set the duplicated to overlay. Duplicate again but this time set the duplicated image to multiply.

Step 3

Press Shift+alt+ctrl+E to merge all the visible layers into a new layer. Apply to this layer a curve adjustment (ctrl+M) and a saturation adjustment (ctrl+U)

Step 4

Lets create the text. Open illustrator and write something using the edistys font. Now go to object>Expand. Save the AI file and make sure to save as an Illustrator 3 file (3 is the software version) so that it’s compatible with Cinema 4D.

Step 5

In Cinema 4D go to File>Merge and open the Illustrator file.

Step 6

In the object window you can observe that there are 5 paths (one for each letter). Select all the paths (hold shift to select more than one path) and right click>Connect. Notice that we have created a new path. We will work with this, so eliminate all the other layers.

Step 7

We have to give depth to the text. So select the Extrude Nurbs object. Then in the object window drag the path inside the Nurb.

Step 8

Select the Nurbs object in the object window. Modify the caps options from “cap” to “fillet cap”.

Step 9

In the materials window add a nukei material. Then apply the material by dragging it on the text.

Step 10

Double click on the material icon to open its options window and switch the reflection intensity to 60%

Step 11

Add one or more light objects (Object>Scene>Light)

Step 12

Create a new material and in the colors menu upload the pyramids image.

Step 13

Create a sky object (Object>Scene>Sky) and apply to it the last material created. You should see something similar to this:

Step 14

It’s time for rendering. For the render settings follow the screenshot below. Note that we checked “Alpha channel” and “Separate Alpha” so that in Photoshop we could easily extract the text using alpha channels. After have updated render settings go to Render>Render to Picture Viewer and save as a Photoshop file.

Step 15

Open the just created PS file. We have to extract the text: go to the channels’ window. At the bottom there’s the separate Alpha. Ctrl+click on this channel to select its pixels. Now switch to the layer window, go to select>Inverse and press delete. The text is now isolated.

Step 16

Copy and paste the text in our main Photoshop canvas. Right click on the text layer and select Blending Modes. Add satin with the default options.

Step 17

At this point I really hate the color. The best way to change it is to apply a gradient map. So go to Image>Adjustments>Gradient Map…and choose a gradient going from red to blue to yellow.

Step 18

Now we have to increase the contrast, so apply also a levels adjustments:

Step 19

Create a new layer and switch its layer blending mode to overlay. With a soft white brush (hardness 0%) start painting over the text to enhance some parts of it. To make the effect stronger, duplicate one/two times the layer.

Step 20

Repeat the step 20 but this time set a nice pink as foreground color

Step 21

Paste in the folded stained paper texture. Press shift+ctrl+U to desaturate it and ctrl+i to inverse the colors. Set the layer blend mode to screen. Increase the contrast with the curves (ctrl+M and create a “S” like in step 3). We are going to achieve a nice result!

Step 22

Paste in the old paper texture. Set the layer to overlay and reduce the opacity to around 70%.

Step 23

Create a new curves adjustments layer (Layer>New Adjustment Layer>Curves)

Step 24

Press shift+ctrl+alt+E to merge all the visible layers into a new layer. Sharpen this layer (Filter>Sharpen>Sharpen). Yes, we’ve finished!