The snow has fallen over here, and the outside is looking beautiful, but very cold. Inside nice music is coming out of the loudspeakers, the heating is working hard and the atmosphere is cosy with all the candles and lights. In other words, winter has arrived and it is time for a new tutorial: make a winter theme based poster. This can be used for christmas and happy new year cards, as computer background, etc. In this tutorial you’ll learn to use adapted brushes, stroked paths and layer masks. Let’s start!

The endresult of this tutorial:

Step 1:

Open up a new file in photoshop (ctrl + N) , make it  1652px * 1168,  and 72dpi, as shown in the image below (all pictures can be enlarged by clicking on it):

Step 2:

Now we’ll start with the background. The background is from the white christmas stock photos,  somewhat cropped and rotated. You can download it here. Place it in a layer and call it “background”.  Add a new layer (ctrl+shift+N, I named it “Background Gradient”) and draw a radial gradient, use #3ec5ef  and #011b51, as shown in the image below:

Set it’s blending mode to overlay, and lower it’s fill to 75%. You should end up with something like this:

Step 3:

Create a new layer (ctrl + shift + N, I named it “Gradient New”) and draw a linear gradient, colors #8cd1e9 and #00224a, as shown in the image below.

Set Blending mode of this layer to darken (alt+shift+k) and add a Layer Mask. Make sure you have the layer mask selected.  Now erase some of the parts in the bottom, using a lower opacity (50%), soft edged brush (size: about 200px). In a layer mask, you can erase (or better: mask) things using black, and bring them back using white.  You should have something like this (in the corner you can see more about the layer mask):

Step 4:

Add a new layer, and call it ‘lines’.  Now add some lines:  using the pentool (P), draw a line from the left bottom to left top and the middle. Make sure you have a 3px standard brush (otherwise, change it) selected, and right click on the path you just did draw.  Now choose stroke path, and use brushes. Also select Simulate Pressure. Repeat this process with some nice paths, until you come up with something like this:

Now fade some lines somewhat, using a layer mask. A layer mask allows us to easily modify the layer, and to mask or not. Add a layer mask, having the ‘lines’ layer selected. Brush with a low opacity brush (25%), color: black (#000000), to some ends of the lines, and just were you feel looking nice, until you have something like this:

Step 5:

Duplicate this layer (Ctrl + J, the layer mask is duplicated as well) and move it under it’s original layer. Go to Filters > Blur > Gaussian Blur and apply a Gaussian Blur of 3,0px. You should have something like this:

Step 6:

Add a new layer, below the ‘Lines and Lines Copy’ layers. I named it brushing white. Now we will continue with some brushing. For this we have to adapt a standard soft edged brush somewhat, and add a texture to it (as shown below):

Start Brushing in the left corner, using around 100-300px sized brush,  so we have a kind of ‘light source’ there. Also brush around the curves, as shown below:

Now again add a layer mask, and mask some of the brushing, especially around the curves. Use a low opacity soft edged brush for this. You should end up with something like this:

Step 7

Now add some stars with the star brushes. Add a new layer (ctrl+shift+N), I named it ‘stars’  We’ll use the standard star brush, but turn of scattering in the brushes panel:

Brush with 40-50% opacity, with various brush size (use [ or ] to change brush size), until you have something as below. I also added some white in this layer with the brush we used in step 6, with a very low opacity (5-10%).

Step 8

Now you’re done! Additionally, you could add some text. I used the asenine font, and placed my text layer just above the Background Layer.  For a good composition, make sure you align the text well. Final outcome:

You can download the original .psd here.

I also wish everyone a merry christmas and a happy newyear !