Tutorial: Hot Wallpaper with Flames

Written by devvv (19 Aug 2006 09:39 AM)

In this desktop background tutorial I will show you how to create a hot wallpaper with Angelina Jolie. She is surrounded from and standing in hot flames ;)

1. Google images search, look for "Angelina Jolie", click the Dropdown to only view large images. You'll find this picture pretty easy. Save the picture and open it up in the GIMP.
   
   click to enlarge
2. First of all we've to mask Angelina (free her body from the background). There are many ways to do this, one easy way is to use the paths-tool. Click B, thats the hotkey for the bezier-paths-tool. Check the "Polygon"-Option. Duplicate the picture and make the copy invisible by clicking the eye-icon in the layers-dialog.
   
   In the layers-dialog activate the background-layer, click right and choose "Add Alpha-Channel".
   
   Your layers should look like this now:
   
   click to enlarge
3. Be sure to have the Paths-Tool active. Now start to click in the left bottom (where her hand is). Zoom the picture in to 300%, now click in small intervals along her skin. When encountering edges do very small click intervals. do this for the whole picture. First only for the outer part.
   
   click to enlarge
4. When you finished you need to hold CTRL and click the first point you set. This is to complete your path - it is completed as seen on the picture below.
   
   If you did some points wrong or change anything in the path you can do this now by moving the single points. By holding CTRL and scrolling the wheel on your mouse you can zoom out/in. After you're satisified with your path hit ENTER and the path becomes an active selection.
   
   click to enlarge
5. The part is now selected. Hit CTRL+I to invert the selection or go to Selection / Invert and remove the selected part (hit DEL):
   
   click to enlarge
6. Now repeat step 3 with the inner - not yet transparent - part of the picture.
   
   click to enlarge
7. Angelina (freed from the background) should now look like this:
   
   click to enlarge
8. Move her to the right, then go to Layer / Layer to picture size. Create a new, empty layer and fill it black. Move the layer to the total bottom in the layers-dialog.
   
   click to enlarge
9. Now we need to some inner glow to her body!
   
   - Add a new transparent Layer above the body layer
   - Set #ff7200 as FG-color.
   - rightclick the layer with her body (layers-dialog), choose "Alpha to Selection"
   - Select / Shrink: 5px
   - Select / Feather: 20px
   - Selection / Invert
   - select the just created layer
   - Edit / Fill with FG-Color
   - Selection / None
   - rightclick the body-layer again (layers-dialog) and again choose "Alpha to Selection".
   - Selection / Invert
   - activate the orange layer and cut the selection.
   
   You should now have a inner glow on her!
   
   click to enlarge
10. Next we need a strong drop shadow.
    
    - Filter / Light and Schadow / Drop Shadow (in GIMP 2.2 this filter is found under Script-Fu)
    
    Radius: 60-70
    Color: #ff6000
    Opacity: 100%
    
    click to enlarge
11. To make the glow more visible duplicate the layer 2 times.
    
    Another way to get a nice glow is:
    
    - Alpha to Selection from the body-layer
    - Selection / Expand: 5-10px
    - create a new layer, move it behind (below) her body in the layers dialog
    - fill the layer with any red or orange color
    - deactivate the selection (SElection / None)
    - choose Filter / Blur / Gaussian Blur and blur the layer pretty much until you're satisfied!
    
    click to enlarge
12. Now we gonna duplicate her face and move it to the back, lower the opacity, so that it can be very little seen.
    
    - Press Shift+T to get the Scale-Tool active.
    
    In the popup-dialog set the chains to be linked! Set 2000px as new width. Click OK. Then move the layer directly above the black layer in the layers dialog.
    
    click to enlarge
13. Now we let her fade a bit. Press F (free selection tool) and make a slection as seen on the picture.
    
    Optinal you can also use layer-masks if youre familiar with this technique.
    
    click to enlarge
14. Then click Selection / Fade: 450px.
    
    Delete the selected part.
    - Selection /None
    
    Now lower the opacity of this layer until you're satisfied.
    
    Optional you can colorize the layer now (Colors / Colorize)
    
    click to enlarge
15. Next we make the picture pretty hot ;) Open your browser (oh, damn I gueass it is already open ;)) google images search and search for a cool fire, or you download my fire (Tutorial-Details to the right).
    
    - Open the fire.
    - Selection / All
    CTRL+c top copy alls
    
    switch to our picture, press CTRL+v to paste and click the "add layer"-button in the layers dialog. Then you should have the fire on a seperate layer.
    
    click to enlarge
16. Colors / Color to transparent. (in GIMP 2.2 this is found under Layers / Transparency / )
    
    click to enlarge
17. The next step is totally up to you. Play around with the fire, duplicate the fire-layer a few times, some of them give in front of Angelina, some put behind her. Transform each layer, rotate, scale, do as you please until you're satisfied with it. Use the Erase-Tool with a big faded (soft) brush to delete certain pieces and fade the seperate fire layers to look like one peace.
    
    click to enlarge
18. Finally we want her glow very softly, we want to strenghten the shine.
    
    - Duplicate the body-layer.
    - Flter / Blur / Gaussian Blur: 40px
    - Set the layer-mode to "overlay". The layer modes dropdown menu is found top to the opacity-setting in the layers dialog.
    
    Optinal you can use the selective blur instead of the gaussian to preserve some sharp countours.
    
    Thats it! ;) Have fun doing your own wallpapers.
    
    click to enlarge

This work is licensed under the following license: Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 2.0 Austria.

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From: Thrrb (01 Jul 2008 06:47 PM)

never mind i figured it out ^____^

From: Thrrrd (01 Jul 2008 03:30 PM)

im having problem with step 9 inner glow, insted of inner glow i get the background color oransje???

From: Rhoda (28 Jun 2008 07:44 AM)

hi guyz a got a photoshop but its da old version itz like photoshop 6.0 da pblem is i dnt knw how to use it is it possible if u guyz can help mhe 2 use it? please and thank you@@

From: timmy332621 (06 Jun 2008 06:59 PM) – Send a private message

Sorry i already figured out

From: timmy332621 (06 Jun 2008 06:24 PM) – Send a private message

Hi
I stuck the hole time at step 10
when i use dropshadow the image becomes bigger but the layers dont do anything

From: IndianWarrior (05 Jun 2008 06:19 PM) – Send a private message

Great work! I really enjoyed it.

From: wallpapers (04 May 2008 09:21 PM) – Send a private message

it amazing! really great work!

From: basi mon (08 Mar 2008 08:38 AM)

i didnt undrstand anythng! plz help me

From: PhazedReality (26 Feb 2008 02:14 AM) – Send a private message

Man..its impossible to do simple things, iv got to pirate a copy of photoshop, i tried, honest I did.

From: PhazedReality (26 Feb 2008 02:02 AM) – Send a private message

I still can't get the image by itself, delete and backspace dont work and cut just makes the area white but doesn't actually delete that space from the image.

From: PhazedReality (26 Feb 2008 01:41 AM) – Send a private message

I found the eye, im slowly getting the hang of this. I scaled a layer to larger than the image fits, how do I fix that :/

From: PhazedReality (26 Feb 2008 01:12 AM) – Send a private message

Ah well, I figured out the first part, its "duplicate layer" not "duplicate". Still don't have an 'eye' next to layers.

From: PhazedReality (26 Feb 2008 01:06 AM) – Send a private message

SO, im stuck on #2...
when I duplicate, it opens a new copy of the image, it does not create a new layer. Also, there is no eye next to my layers. Also, I cant remove the selected part on step 5, but lets take this one step at a time. Help please :(

From: devvv (16 Feb 2008 10:55 PM) – Send a private message

I've updated step 9. It should now be possible for all ppl to get this right ;)

From: Ztoph (13 Feb 2008 09:38 PM) – Send a private message

really nice tut. but you didnt chance the select/fade thing.

From: kyu (01 Feb 2008 07:31 PM)

oh my attachment didn't go through apparently, damn, nevermind, the image is at http://i34.servimg.com/u/f34/11/39/20/16/grace_12.jpg

:P

From: kyu (01 Feb 2008 07:26 PM)

modded it :P just a layers>>colours>>colorize on the flames' and "aura" layers, but imo its damned efficient if you ask me :D

kinds of kills the "hot" part though :)

From: devvv (31 Jan 2008 10:29 AM) – Send a private message

not bad at all, kyu ;) a little more time with gimp and your will look fantastic!

From: kyu (31 Jan 2008 01:10 AM) – Send a private message

@ Rich, you can also skip step 9 and try the method described in step 11 to get the glow :)

(btw @ devvv, nevermind, i found out why my flame looks weird compared to yours :P)

From: kyu (31 Jan 2008 01:05 AM) – Send a private message

think i got it :) except my flames look kind of weird, but that can be fixed :) nice tut btw ^_^

From: Rich (19 Dec 2007 04:31 AM)

Hi, I'm pretty new to this and I keep getting stuck on stage 9 - I have tried many time and all I seem to do is shrink the image and fill the rest of the layer orange - so I get left with a slightly shrunken image and an orange screen - any ideas where I am going wrong, I can't work out what I'm doing wrong - I suspect something in layer selection

From: devvv (22 Nov 2007 07:35 PM) – Send a private message

make sure you have correctly selected the layer with her body when you make the drop shadow. also make sure that nothing else is selected!

From: Kenned (22 Nov 2007 04:47 PM) – Send a private message

Cant get past 10... have tryed 10 times to get the extra glowing effect but when i do as it says it just open a empty Drop Shadow layer..

From: Sunil (20 Nov 2007 10:05 AM)

i like this v. much

From: elberry (16 Oct 2007 06:21 AM)

hi good i happy

From: praKash (04 Oct 2007 04:38 AM)

it's too good

From: Christian (22 Sep 2007 11:56 PM)

When I am at the step where I click DEL to delete the selected area, it does not work.

From: Rhoxie (15 Aug 2007 06:26 AM) – Send a private message

a need help plz...i'm trying 2 undersdand diz but it doens't work on mhe....

From: amirfarahmand (12 Aug 2007 12:53 PM)

okok very good

From: dch (07 Aug 2007 08:01 AM)

for some reason,when you said to invert and then hit delete,it didn't work for me but I did everything the way you said so what went wrong?

From: Gimp Noob (04 Aug 2007 02:26 PM)

Step 16. In version 2.2.17 (windows) I tried Layer/Transparency then what is the next choice... None of them seem to give me the shown effect you stated.

From: devvv (30 Jul 2007 12:30 PM) – Send a private message

just move the layer tht contains the fire under the layer with her masked body.

From: lil one (21 Jul 2007 08:38 PM)

ummm im having problems putting the flames behind her.
im kinda new at this.
So any help would be deeply appreciated.
HEEELLLPPP!!!!!!!!

From: devvv (14 Jul 2007 12:54 PM) – Send a private message

Ah, my fault - its called Select / Feather. You should have that! Sorry... I changed it in the tutorial now.

From: Dan (14 Jul 2007 12:22 PM)

Thanks!

One problem for me. I cannot find select/ fade in GIMP. Looked everywhere, all I can find is Fade Outline in Script-Fu, I don't know if that creates the same effect.

From: cicero (13 Jul 2007 01:06 AM)

Não conseguir fazer o efeito final.preciso de ajudar.

From: yaser (02 Jul 2007 01:27 AM)

heloo thank you

From: tyree (12 Jun 2007 06:59 AM)

wow i always wanted something like this

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