I'm probably one of the only people in the world who creates a graphic to make a tutorial out of it. =P I just really wanted to create a unique header and it turned out that people probably COULD benefit from learning how to make this thing, so I've created a tutorial. :) Hope it's useful.

Made in Photoshop CS2, but it's pretty much translatable. At least to PSP. I have no idea about the GIMP because I've never used that program before in my life. o___O It's free though, so no problems there. XD

Also not dial-up friendly, as I like to use pretty high-quality images and all that good stuff. o___O You should also be pretty familiar with your program, as I'm not going to show or tell you where to find certain tools.

We're going to be making this header:


First, start with a new, blank image. Mine's 600x400, but you can make it whichever size works for you. You may not be able to find textures for all sizes though, I'll warn you right now.

Then, I take this texture by Rain Harbour and paste it on top. Very simple, but there's SO much you can do with this. So much.



Now I'm going to put a few grayish grungy textures on top. The ones I used are from ownthesunshine.



I set the bottom texture to Color Burn (Burn in PSP) at 70%, and the top one I also set to Color Burn, but at 100%. Very cool. :)



Now I take the Rectangular Marquee tool and draw a bar across the top of the image. Doesn't matter where. Then I took a pattern by 77words and flood-filled it in. I set it to Color Burn at 100%. I'm REALLY liking this!



Now for some brushes. I'm using a bunch from Rain Harbour and Hybrid Genesis. All in #000000. Set it to Overlay. I realize mine has some places erased, but I'll get to that later (I probably should have used a layer mask, but ah well.).



Time for the actual pictures! I open these two pictures:



ZOMG CESC. XD I drag the one on the left onto the actual header and minimize the second one. I'll come back to it later.

Set the picture (the one on the header) to Darken, 100%. This works MUCH better if the image you're working with has a grayish/whitish background. I erase over the letters and other things that let me know that it's not a seamless picture, and voilà. This is why some of the brush was erased earlier; it looked like someone drew all over his face. XD



Now for the REALLY fun stuff. Heh. We're going to come back to the main header in a bit. It's time to focus on Image #2.

Crop the image to 250x250 pixels. Depending on the size of your header, you can adjust this as necessary. What I'm going to do now is make it a Polaroid picture without using brushes. It's not as complicated as it sounds, though I will say this is MUCH easier in PSP due to the nature of the Canvas Size option. Oh well.

Expand the Canvas Size to 265x335, background color #FFFFFF. You may want to duplicate your base before you expand the canvas, just a heads-up. Now fill in the background so that it's ALL WHITE. Rearrange the top layer (the picture) so that it's in the middle up top. You're going to want about 50 pixels or so down on bottom, otherwise it won't look like a Polaroid. ;) You're now going to want to duplicate the background, and merge the picture layer down. Duplicate AGAIN, and using the Rectangular Marquee tool select the square the image is in and cut it out, but only from the middle layer. You should now have three layers, an all-white layer, a white box with a hole in it, and a square picture.

If you're using PSP, expand all sides by the same amount; about 5 pixels. On top, give it 5 pixels and on bottom about 50. This is if you're using a 250x250 square image. Select OK and duplicate the image. Take the Magic Wand and select the white section, and Inverse it. Cut the image out. You should still be able to see it from the layer underneath. See? Much easier on PSP. XD

Back to Photoshop users. Take the Rectangular Marquee tool again and select the image. Although I suppose you could use the Magic Wand tool. XD Select the white and inverse the selection. Expand the selection by about three pixels and draw a single gray line just inside the selection.

PSP users can use the Magic Wand tool to Select, Inverse, Expand by 2 or 3 pixels, and draw the gray line (I use #CCCCCC for the gray).

PS users should still have three layers, and PSP users should have two. There should be a gray box inside the single white border.

Time for the Inner Bevel. PSP users are going to want to fiddle with this a bit, as I had to uninstall the program and all my settings were thus lost. This is done on the white border layer. My settings on PS that aren't default are:

Angle: 130
Shadow Mode: Multiply, Opacity 30.

Everything else should be the same. See? Now it looks like an actual Polaroid for the most part! Exciting! Here's what my Polaroid looks like:



Now to add the stuff to make it match the header! o_____O Actually it's not that bad. XD

Drag the bottom three layers (not the brush layer) onto the Polaroid image, underneath the border. The settings should remain the same, except to PSP users. They're going to need to go back and re-do the settings. The brown layer should remain Normal 100%, and the other two are at Color Burn; the bottom one being at 70%. Rearrange the layers as you need to; make sure there aren't too many scratchies and whatnot to make it look...well...not so grungy. XD

I've now realized it might be a good idea to set my border to Soft Light so it blends in a bit. The white won't go too well with the header after all, since there's no white in it. :) That looks a little too subtle, so I duplicate it and leave the duplicate at Soft Light, with the opacity at 15%. Here's what I have:



PHEW. All that hard work has definitely seemed to have paid off. XD

Now flatten the Polaroid and drag it onto the header. Move it to the "empty" space on the right and use the Free Transform tool to tilt it a bit, making it a little more "realistic." My result:



SPIFF. Y. =D

Only the final touches are left. :) I added a little brush by Hybrid Genesis onto the Polaroid image for "garnish." I also added a texture by The Magic Box (the site is down) set to Screen to add a couple scratchies for fun. This is completely optional. :)

Then I added another texture from ownthesunshine. The result:



I like it. A LOT. A LOT A LOT A LOT. XD

And since I felt extremely inspired last night while listening to my La Oreja de Van Gogh CDs (an AWESOME Spanish/Basque band. CHECK THEM OUT. NOW.), I decided I'd put a few lines from one of their songs in here. Also, since Cesc is Spanish (well, Catalán...), I figured Spanish lyrics would be fitting. XD

I chose the hook from their song "La Playa" (The Beach).

The translated lyrics read:

If I could be reborn
I would see you every morning
Smiling like every time
Just like last time.

I used Times New Roman size 26 point, kerned the letters at -75 and set the line spacing to 18 point. I set the opacity to 50%.

I then stuck a brush from ownthesunshine under there in #000000 and set it to Soft Light.

And you're done! My finished product looks like this:



Yay! I'd love to know how this worked out for you. Hope it was helpful and all that jazz. XD

Please join spanishevenstar!