iPhone Wallpaper
July 28th, 2007First Post!
Now that I got that out of the way, it’s time for some bandwagon fun.
How to make an iPhone wallpaper
I threw this one together in Photoshop CS3, but CS2 will work just as well.
1) Creating the preset
Open a new document.
The settings are 320 x 480 px; 180 px/inch; RGB (since it is digital)
You’ll see that on the right side, Photoshop has a button for Device Central. Don’t even bother with this — iPhone is not listed since it does not have Flash capabilities.
Save this preset by clicking the “Save Preset…” button and name it iPhone. This is a shortcut so that you won’t have to enter the settings every time you want to make a wallpaper.
Click “OK” and now you have a beautiful blank document.
From here, you can either rock out your own design, or follow along with mine.
2) Background
In the Layers pallette (Window>Layers; or hit F7), right click the Background layer and choose “Layer From Background…” and click “OK” on the dialogue box. This will give us an unlocked transparent layer to work with instead of a stubborn field of white. The name of the layer has now changed from “Background” to “Layer 0″
Double-click the layer, but not on the text. This will bring up the effects menu. You can also click the fx at the bottom of the layers pallette and choose “Gradient Overlay”. Go to the Gradient Overlay menu. Be careful, it is possible to check the box next to the menu without actually opening the settings. Clicking on the word to highlight it, brings you to the settings.
Double click the gradient. This will bring you to another menu where you can tweak the gradient settings. For this design, I left it all set to default and just changed the color to blue (# 336699) fade to white (# FFFFFF)
If you really wanted to, you could use the gradient tool instead of creating a layer style. However, I find that I am fickle and change my mind a lot. The layer styles allow you to try different things on the fly without damaging the original image.
Save file.
3) Make it Shiny
Create a new layer. This will be the large fuzzy stars in the background. Grab your Gradient Tool (G) and choose a white to transparent radial gradient. Click and drag the gradient a short distance, about 10-20 pixels. Draw 5-7 of these stars, clustering them at an angle. When you are happy, change the layer opacity to 75%.
(before transparency change)
Create another layer, this is your middleground set of stars. These will be smaller, brighter, and more numerous. Here we need to change the gradient just a bit. Click on the gradient in the upper toolbar. This will bring up the settings to tweak the gradient. Click the Opacity Stop on the far right of the gradient — it looks like a white box with a black triangle underneath it. This will show you the Opacity Midpoint, the diamond in the center of the gradient we are editing. Click and drag the Opacity Midpoint to 1/3 down to the white. The Location will read 33%. Click “OK”
Again, click and drag the gradient tool as you did for the first set of stars, except this time make them smaller and more numerous.
Create a new layer. It is easier to create the tiny stars by zooming in to about 150%. The stars here are smaller than the medium star layer and again, more numerous.
Now you have your starfield. It is still a bit boring though, let’s add a little bit of color.
Save file.
4) Stardust
Create a new layer just above the Background layer and under the Large stars layer. This will be the Stardust Layer. Grab your brush tool (B) and set it to 170 px, 0 Hardness. Click three or four times in this layer to form a soft cloud-like effect. With a 120 px brush, add two smaller brush points for definition.
With the stardust layer selected, click Image>Adjustments>Hue/Saturation… or command+U for the shortcut.
Check the “Colorize” box and make sure “Preview” is checked as well. Play around with the settings until you get a nice subtle color. Gold, lime, pink, and purple work pretty well for this. I chose a rusty color. Click “OK” when you are satisfied.
Save file.
5) Saving for iPhone
Usually, I recommend the “Save for Web” option as it compresses and keeps image quality really well. In this case, it will backfire since it saves at 72ppi instead of the 180ppi that the iPhone uses.
Click File>Save as…
Choose a place to save it. Then there is a drop-down menu at the bottom that lets you choose the file format. Go with jpeg for the iPhone and save at a high quality. You can then export it to iPhoto so that you may upload it to your iPhone the next time you sync. One thing to note, the screen on the iPhone is much brighter than most displays and will not seem as colorful as it is on your computer. Increasing saturation can help this.
Here is my final copy:
