ILONA ANDREWS

#1 New York Times Bestselling Author

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Wallpaper Blank

Readers, Wallpapers POST A COMMENT by

I came late into your blog, late last year, so please bear with me if I am asking a question that you have already answered before.

On your wallpaper post dated Jan. 31 2011, I get the conclusion that you created the picture yourself. My question is this: did you used an app or a program? Is there a chance you can tell me the product’s name? I want to try it myself and see how far I go, but mostly, I have a nephew I think would benefit from it. Thanks.

Zorayda

The magic book wallpaper in question was created with Photoshop. I am not that proud of it, because it is badly made. Playing with Photoshop is really fun and now you can get on a monthly subscription, which makes it affordable. You can also use a free program like GIMP.

To create wallpaper like this, you have to understand layers. Think of the picture like an applique. You start with the background, then you put another layer on it with some elements, then another. To help you and your nephew get started, I made you a blank. We get a lot of requests for wallpapers, so hopefully this will be helpful.

Click here for the high quality image. This is a very large file. It will take a bit to load.

Now that you have your high quality blank, you can add your own things to it. For example, here is a Kate and Curran wallpaper I made this morning out of stock files I had lying around.

Click here for the larger file. I really didn’t blend it all that well, because this is just for demonstration purchases.

How this was made.

I took a stock image of a woman which could reasonably be Kate, which you can find here and pasted it on top of the background. Pasting something in Photoshop instantly creates its own layer.

Look in the right bottom corner. That’s where all the layers are.

I used lasso tool to select her face. I clicked on Select in the top menu, chose inverse, which selected the background, and deleted it by using a large round brush of eraser tool.

Then I resized the layer and dragged it in place with my mouse. I wanted the image to be translucent. You can accomplish it by several means. Look at the layer’s section of the screen. You can set opacity to 50%. Or you can do what I did and change the blending mode of the layer. See where it says Normal? Okay, click that and try different options under the drop down until it looks good.

I chose to duplicate the layer with the girl, so I had two identical layers on top of each other. I set the bottom to Soft Light with about 40% opacity and the top to overlay with 7o% opacity. I ended up with this.

Then I repeated the process with the lion.

After that was done, I pasted some text from Magic Triumphs into the document, resized it, set it to Color Dodge at 33% opacity, and then took a big old eraser brush with soft edges and deleted it around the book. You can also use layer mask to do this, which is a better way, but a separate tutorial.

Now you can do your own. You can plug whatever image makes you happy. Here is a hack job of innkeeper wallpaper with Olasard and extra cheesy Sean Evans.

I tinted the image magenta and pasted a bunch of things in. Here is the large version, because I know someone will ask for it.

Now you are all set. Go forth and make your own wallpapers. I’ve reactivated comment images if you want to share your creations. Remember, slightly darker images work best, because it makes the icons on your desktop stand out.

PS. This has taken me a couple of hours, so if you are a self-pub author and someone quotes you a $1,000 for a cover that is doing exactly what I did, you can confidently say no. The entire stock for the two wallpapers came in under $60.

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Comments

  1. Thou are talented in so many ways! Thanks for the easy to understand tutorial, am d i love both versions!

  2. Thank you for the step by step tutorial!😀 I also want to add this information about an amazing website tool that could help crop images with high chance of smooth results: remove.bg

    As of now, it only works on images with people in it. From what little I knew about the program behind it, it’s a combination of Adobe Illustrator and a software that can detect a human’s part of the body especially the face *cmiiw. Really saved a lot of time from cropping. Hope it help!

  4. I learn so much hanging out with you guys. I won’t ever try this, but it’s great knowing that it’s do-able even for me.
    Thank you once again.

  6. If you do use stock images, make sure you read the legal print. Some allow you to use it as much as you want for free, so long as it’s for personal use, but you may have to pay for the image to use it for a business, and you may have to pay for each use. So make sure to read the legal print. You don’t want to steal anyone’s image just like the Andrews’ don’t want you pirating their work.

    • Ilona, it might be worth adding this to your blog post as an addendum since it is a pretty valuable consideration that we forget to think about all too often and thus deserves a more prominent position where someone will actually see it (ie, blog Post)

      And I’m impressed you bothered to create this tutorial. I’m lazy and would have just googled for a good quality website that explains how to Photoshop. You guys are awesome.

      Cheers

  7. You should try Affinity, it’s really awesome. I used Gimp before, but Affinity is so much better, easier to use and really cheap. I love it 🙂 another useful tool is canva, it’s online and free for basic stuff.

  9. Wow! Thanks for the lesson. I don’t think I would have the patience for it. I would always be making changes. 😁

  10. Again, you guys are awesome…. now I feel like I need to update my website… I haven’t touched it since the 90’s. ….lol

  12. I’m probably never going to do this sort of thing myself, but I still enjoyed reading this tutorial and learning something new. Posts like this are part of why I love not only your stories but this blog – thank you!

  13. Here is the large version, because I know someone will ask for it.

    *pauses in the midst of typing “CAN I PLEASE HAVE SEAN AND THE FLUFFY KITTY WALLPAPER IN LARGE SIZE?”…*

    Ahem. Yes. I didn’t know my life was missing a Sean & Olasard wallpaper, but apparently it did. 🙂 The wallpapers are gorgeous!

    I’ve reactivated comment images if you want to share your creations.

    Mwahahaha! … (Please don’t sue.)

  14. I work for a large public library system near Atlanta, and each of our branches is equipped with at least 4 Macs loaded with Adobe CS which includes Photoshop, Lightroom, InDesign, etc. We provide access to tutorials to self-learn how to use the programs, and customers can also Book-a-librarian appointments for personalized learning sessions (in addition to group classes at the branches). Several of our branches have a service which allows customers to enter the branch before and after normal open hours to use the computers and take advantage of other resources on a self-serve basis. I’ve been a huge fan of your Innkeeper, Kate Daniels,The Edge series, and other series for years, but this is the first time I’ve added a comment. Check out your local Public Library for tech production and learning opportunities, we teach the future!

    • This is great! You are doing an amazing job, love libraries and librarians, you guys never stop thinking how to help people reach for the world and empruve therselfs!

  15. Well this was pretty cool to learn. You maybe gotten me hooked. Very complete tutorial. I may become a graphics genius now. Lol
    In all seriousness thank you for taking the time to explain

  16. Thank you for this, I was thinking of using free stock for my business Facebook, but I didn’t think to check the fine print. I will be sure to do so. People usually don’t think about this kind of stuff. On the Photoshop note, I played with it in my highschool years, it was fun and after that really handy for work. There are a lot of tutorials and video on YouTube, and you can make it like a game for your grandson. And also how amazing it is for team Andrews to make this tutorial! Thank you, it may be useful for us in other ways, and also the comments are great as also!

    • Yana, there are free stock sites that offer images for commercial use, such as pixabay. But in general, I prefer to buy a license. Most of the time, you only need the standard licensing if all you’re doing is using the image online. Enhanced licensing comes into play when you are printing merchandise or books in large quantities.

  18. I remember the days before Adobe was subscription. Going subscription made it so much more affordable.

    Typically the quote for graphics work like this is so high, because you’re being charged for the fact the image is being used in multiple places and for multiple applications. For instance let’s think about a company logo design. A logo gets used on websites, newsletters, business cards, advertising (print, online, broadcast), apparel, badges, signs, stationary, social media, tchotchkes (like pens, water bottles, bags), etc.

    If you have the skills to do it yourself, awesome it can be fun and save you a lot of money (but it can also eat up your time from other tasks on your to-do list). There’s a lot of free tutorials you can find on youtube teaching you various techniques too if you want to learn more than this handy guide from Ilona. But remember if you do have someone doing the graphic work for you, you’re not just paying for X amount of work (time creating the piece), and any stock footage or font licensing costs, but the cost usually also reflects the understanding that created image may be used both now, and in various ways in the future too.

    • Right. I was thinking about the P.S. about pricing. Yes, the raw materials for the images might’ve cost less than a hundred bucks. But that’s like saying that one should pay only for the paper and ink when buying a novel.

      The hours spent producing these images has tremendous value, since it was time from someone with unique and valuable skills. Additionally, there had to have been many hours of nonreimbursed time spent fiddling around with image-generating software to develop those skills, and the value of those hours gets folded into market rates. And then there’s the difficult-to-quantify factor of talent and/or artistic skill. Others could follow those directions in a technically perfect manner, but the resulting image wouldn’t have pleasant proportions, color balance, etc.

      I’m not an artist of any sort, so I can’t speak with authority about what producing such images should cost – but I am certain it should be a lot more than just the cost of the materials.

      But that’s just musing. Mostly I just wanted to say “Thank you” for taking your valuable time to share with your fans! I love your blog and your writing.

      • That’s all great, but there are industry standards. Most covers for self-published books come in under $500. If the cover is above that, it needs to be amazing. If someone is quoting a writer $2000 for pasting a cat and a house over pregenerated background, the author has a right to shop elsewhere.

  19. OMGs! How generous are you to publish a PS tutorial? If you didn’t know or I haven’t said it before (because this is my first comment post) you guys rock!

  22. I love the tutorial, the end results, etc.
    Was the one cat source a Maine Coon (possibly Norwegian Forest Cat?)… I used to be a dog person until a Maine Coon owned me 😁
    Also, please be aware that there are free sites that don’t have art from the creators who don’t know their art is being distributed…happened to my ex…I guess, a good rule of thumb is if it looks too good to be true at least do a little research…not to say that there isn’t good freebie stuff out there…ok, I’m getting old “hey kids! get off my lawn!” 🤪🤪🤪

  24. Neat-o! Thanks. I’ve tried to play with GIMP, but everything I try to learn from starts out above my knowledge/skill level. Which is Zero.

  25. For folks who want to dive in further, I particularly enjoy the tutorials by Design Cuts, which you can find here: https://www.designcuts.com/learning-hub/tutorials/

    What’s particularly great about their tutorials is the fact that they make available for free all the files you need to complete the tutorial yourself – you can download them directly from each tutorial’s page. And each comes with a YouTube video so you see exactly how they do it.

    Here’s a recent example: How to create an epic science fiction book cover in Photoshop

    (I am not in any way affiliated with them. I just like their tutorials and have bought several of their font packs over the years)

  27. I really love all the “behind the scenes” info you share on this blog. Thank you for these tips on writing, publishing, graphics, and of course thanks for the innkeeper. Your blog and your writing have provided me with so much reading pleasure!!

  28. My roommate is restarting her production business and I am amazed by all the free computer and teleconference stuff available. I’m cheering her on, she is amazingly business minded. My granddaughter wants to write books and has done some fan fiction that was well received. I recommended she read your blog for excellent information. I also emphasized that a lot of authors I enjoy and follow say, “If you want to write put your backside in a chair and write every single day.” so thanks for all the great incentive and information you provide to us.

  29. So I just went to buy Sweep With Me, forgetting I don’t live in MST at the moment and so really will have to wait until tomorrow…and I saw the you are number 1 in shifters and romance, for a novella that you have published for free on your website. That is pretty amazing. I never comment on here, but often lurk. It’s likely you won’t read this, but if you do, just wanted you to know, your books have given me hours of pleasure over the years and gifted me with the luxury of knowing that I will never be disappointed when I open one of your books.

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