Tutorial – Bonnie Header

Click for larger

Want to be able to make a header in the same style as the one above? It is actually quite easy. Read on! Remember to click each thumbnail for a larger preview.

Step One
Starting time. Make your new file (I made mine 700x435px, however you can make it whatever size you wish). Now, for our background we’re going to use a texture (I used this, however feel free to use your own. Abstract ones with lots of colour are best), but it isn’t important to make sure the texture fills the whole canvass. As long as there isn’t a gap along the width, its fine if there is dead space below.

Step Two
Remember that dead space? We’re going to fill it with another texture. This is the texture I used, however any other paper or material like texture is good too. Make sure this texture is at the top layer and remains there. Everything should be done underneath this layer, its a very important part.

Step Three
Lets add an image. I used this lovely photo of Bonnie Wright, but again whatever image you use is up to you. I roughly etched around her, leaving some of her background with her. Its sort of the kind of cut out you would do if you were cutting an image from a magazine. Anyway, remember to keep this under the layer with the white texture!

Step Four
She looks a bit odd only there on her own, so what we’re going to do is we’ll duplicate her layer, flip her horizontally (“Edit > Transform > Flip Horizontal” in photoshoop) and transform her to be a little smaller. Once she’s on the right of the larger, coloured image, we’ll turn the smaller image black and white (“CTRL + SHFT + U” in photoshop). Sometimes with images turning them black and white doesn’t give you nice, clean black and white images, so you may need to play around with the screen, multiply or soft light layers until you find what you like.

Step Five
The header is still missing something, so let’s try brushes. I used this brush (to turn an image into a brush in photoshop, go “Edit > Define Brush Preset” and press OK. Alternatively you can just use it as it is), stamping it once in black behind her.

Step Six
One more texture, eh? It can’t hurt. I’ve been kind and nicely cropped this texture for you (its originally part of a MASSIVE image), which goes above the images of Bonnie, set to “screen”. Feel free to change the opacity.

Step Seven
Last bits, as in all my tutorials, are the finishing up bits. I decided to add some colouring (a modified version of this), and her name up at the top (font is called Modern No. 20, and its white, set to soft light and duplicated). Sharpening is also a good idea at this point, but I felt my image was sharp enough without it. Done!

Variation – Click for larger

Remember that these steps are only a guideline and you can change them however you wish. And if you want, e-mail me what you’ve made with this tutorial, I’d love to see your results!