Customised Background

Customised Background
Skill level: Beginner
Programs used: Photoshop 7.0

1. Create a new canvas ("Ctrl + N" or FILE >> NEW), 200 x 200 pixels and 72 pixels/inch resolution. Fill in the background with a colour of your choice. I've chosen a shade of grey for mine (#999999 or R = 153, G = 153, B = 153). You should have something like the image below:

2. Create a new layer by pressing the "Create A New Layer" icon found at the bottom right hand of your layers palette. Select the "Type Tool" and type in some text. I just chose to use the word "TEXT" with font = Futura BdCn BT, Size = 80, colour = black. (*note* you don't have to use a text here, you can use any image you want)

3. Now we're going to align the text to the centre of the background layer (in this case its called "Layer 1" but i'll be referring to it as the background layer).

Go to the layers palette, and select the background layer. Link the top layer to the background layer together by pressing the small empty square next to the eye on your text layer. Your layer palette should look something like this:

Select the "Move" tool and at the top of your photoshop window you should see a set of icons like this:

Make sure that the background layer is selected and not the text layer (If the text layer is selected, the background will adjust to centre itself with the text, what we want is the text to adjust itself to the centre of the background). Now press the 2nd icon to adjust it vertically, and the 5th icon to adjust it horizontally. Unlink the layers. You should have something like this now:

4. Now select the text layer, and "Right-Click" >> Rasterize Layer (If you used an image instead of text, you don't need to rasterize).

Duplicate the rasterized layer by dragging the text layer onto the "Create A New Layer" icon .

5. Make sure one of your rasterized layer is selected, then go to FILTER >> OTHER >> OFFSET and use the values shown below.

Horizontal = 100
Vertical = 100
Undefined Areas = Wrap Around

You should have something like this now:

6. Go to FILE >> SAVE AS and make sure you changed the format to .jpg or .gif and now you're ready to use this image in dreamweaver as your background.

It won't look anything great but if you play around with it, you can make something nice. Try putting the text in an angle before applying the offset filter on it, or try lowering the opacity, change the colours, or just add more layers on with different images. By experimenting you can get a great background =).