Create a Cool Background in less than 3 Minutes

Program used: Photoshop CS6

Tools used: Single Column Marquee Tool

Level: Beginner

Okay, if you’ve been designing for any length of time I’m sure you’ve had designer’s block at some point in your career. Well, I’m going to show you a quick way to create a cool background using any picture to help ignite that creativity in your workflow. 

Step 1: Open up the picture you want to work with. Here is a snapshot of the picture I used in this tutorial.

Step 2: Using the Single Column Marquee Tool click anywhere inside your image. (This tool is normally hidden behind the Rectangular or the Elliptical Marquee Tool.) This will create a selection that is exactly one pixel wide and the same height as your image.

Step 3: Make sure your image layer is your active layer and press ctrl/cmd + j. This will make a copy of your selection and place it on a new layer. (The selection is so small that you may not be able to see it, but if you hide your image layer and press ctrl/cmd + d to deselect your selection you should be able to see a really thin line on your artboard.)

 Step 4: Grab your move tool (shortcut: V)

  

Make sure the layer with your new selection is the active layer. You should see a bounding box around the selection you made. (If you don’t see the bounding box make sure your “Show transform controls” is checked. This is located at the top of your workspace, in your options panel).

Step 5: Grab the left handle and drag it to the left all the way to the end of the artboard. Then drag the right handle all the way to the right until it reaches the end of the artboard. 

Step 6: Accept your transformation by pressing the enter/return key on your keyboard or you can click the “commit transform” button (checkmark) at the top of your workspace. 

Your image should now resemble the image below.

That’s it! You can now use this as your background or manipulate it until your heart is content. Try changing the hue/saturation to create a different color scheme. You can also try this same technique using the “Single Row Marquee” Tool and instead of dragging the left and right handles, you’ll drag the top and bottom handles.

 I think this is a really cool technique because:

• It gives you a color palette taken directly from your image that allows you to create a nice coordinated color scheme for your designs.
• Results will vary based on where you make your selection on your image and how colorful your picture is.

Take a look at some things I created using the Single Row Marquee and the Single Column Marquee Tool. Hopefully this will give you some ideas on how you can utilize this technique in your work.

     

I hope you enjoyed this tutorial and that it got your creative juices flowing. Be sure to email me your finished artwork so I can see what you created using this technique. My email address is  kisha@k-designs.net

 

You can also leave a comment if you have questions or suggestions.