With Football Fever at a very high pitch at the moment (no pun intended – football, pitch???) I have designed this wallpaper for football fans everywhere. My design is themed on England, but the colours, badge and a picture for any country can be used.

Resources:

South Africa 2010 Logo from wikipedia.org

Official Football Image from worldcupbuzz.com NOTE: I could not open this image in Photoshop. If you have the same problem, right click on the image and select 'Copy Image', then paste it into your project

Fabric Texture Image from sxc.hu

African Font from dafont.com

The following resources are only needed if you are creating the England wallpaper:

Premiership Font from fontspace.com

Footballers Image from franklampard.info

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Step 1

Open a new file using the following settings:

Step 2

Create a new layer

Select the Gradient Fill tool and for the England colours, apply the following gradient settings:

NOTE: For other countries, use the colours of the national flag for the gradient settings

Set to Linear Gradient

Drag your cursor from the top left hand corner to the bottom right hand corner

Reduce the layer opacity to 86%

Rename the layer ‘gradient’

Step 3

Open the Footballers image

Select>All

Edit>Copy (Ctrl + C)

Make your project active

Edit>Paste (Ctrl + V)

Step 4

Using the Transform tool (Ctrl + T) resize the image as necessary

Rename the layer ‘players’

Step 5

Ctrl + Click on the thumbnail of the players layer in the layers palette to select the pixels

Select>Modify>Feather – set to 20px

Select>Inverse

Hit the Delete key 5 or 6 times until all hard edges have disappeared

Reduce the layer opacity to 70%

Step 6

NOTE: These next few steps are optional - I was unable to find a decent image of the England badge - and also liked the opportunity to create the badge myself. If you don't wish to spend the time doing this, or if you are creating a wallpaper for another country, search the internet for a good quality image of the badge required. If you are not following the tutorial for the badge, you can move on to Step 17

Select the Type tool, Premiership font, size 350pt, foreground colour black

Type an upper case D for the England badge

Right click on the layer in the layers palette and click Rasterize Type

Rename the layer ‘badge blue’

Step 7

NOTE: I found it easier with the visibility of the gradient and players layers turned off for this step

Duplicate the badge blue layer and name it ‘badge red’

Turn off the visibility of the badge red layer

Make badge blue layer active

Zoom into your image to about 200%

Select the Eraser tool and erase all parts of the badge that should not be blue (the roses, claws and tongues of the lions)

Be sure not to erase any of the shield outline

TIP: To ensure you have erased everything you want to, double click on the layer in the layers palette and apply a Stroke to the image – reduce the size to 1, leave the colour at red and you will be able to see where you have missed bits. When you have cleaned it up, turn off the visibility of the stroke by clicking the eye icon below the layer in the layers palette

Step 8

Double click on the badge blue layer in the layers palette to bring up the blending options and apply the following Color Overlay settings:

Step 9

Turn off the visibility of the badge blue layer

Restore the visibility to the badge red layer and make this layer active

Using the Eraser tool, erase all parts of the badge that should not be red, this time leaving just the roses, the claws and tongues of the lions. Be sure to erase the shield outline too.

Step 10

Double click on the badge red layer in the layers palette to bring up the blending options and apply the following Color Overlay settings:

Restore visibility to all layers

Step 11

Merge the 2 badge layers together

Step 12

Create a new layer

Select the Line tool using the following settings:

Set the foreground colour to blue #2C4286

Draw a line from each point of the inner pentagon of the roses to the outside edge, as shown below:

Merge this layer with the badge layer – rename the layer ‘badge’

Step 13

Select the Magic Wand tool

With the badge layer active, click anywhere on the canvas outside of the badge – this will select everything except the badge

Select>Inverse

Select>Modify>Expand – set to 8px, click OK

Create a new layer under the badge layer

Using the Fill Bucket tool, fill the selection with white

Merge this layer and the badge layer together – ensure the layer is still named ‘badge’

Step 14

Create a new layer

Select the Rectangular Marquee tool

Drag out a selection above the badge as shown below:

Fill the selection with white

Ctrl + D to deselect

Move and/or Transform (Ctrl + T) the rectangle if necessary to fit perfectly with the badge

Merge these two layers together – make sure the layer is still named ‘badge’

Step 15

Select the Rectangle tool, foreground colour blue #2C4286

Drag out a rectangle in the top part of the badge as shown below:

Merge the two layers together – make sure the layer is still named ‘badge’

Step 16

Select the Type tool, Verdana font, bold, size 36pt, foreground colour white

Type the word ENGLAND in upper case

Right click on the layer in the layers palette and click Rasterize Type

Ctrl + T to transform the object

Stretch the text out width-ways a little

Merge the two layers – ensure the layer is still named ‘badge’

Step 17

Drag the badge layer below the players layer in the layers palette

Ctrl + T to transform the object

Rotate the badge a little and place it top-right of the players image – this placement can be fine-tuned later on.

Reduce the layer opacity to around 85%

Step 18

Open the South Africa 2010 logo and copy and paste it into your project as previously

Ctrl + T to transform the object

Resize the logo to approximately the same height as the badge

Rotate the logo a little anti-clockwise

Place the logo top-left of the players image – again this will be perfected later.

Reduce the layer opacity to around 70%

Make sure this layer is below the players layer in the layers palette

Rename the layer ‘logo’

Step 19

Open the Offical Football image

Copy and paste it into your project

Select the Magic Wand tool and set the tolerance to 10

Click on the white background parts of the football image and hit the Delete key

Ctrl + T to transform the object

Resize the ball to fit between the badge and the logo

Also, if you wish you can rotate it a little

Make sure this layer is below both the badge and the logo layers

Rename the layer ‘football’

Step 20

Now is the time to arrange the logo, badge and football to your liking – don’t worry right now about the players image, just place the three elements as you are happy with them – here is how I place them:

When you are happy with the layout of these three layers, merge them together

Rename the layer ‘elements’

Reduce the layer opacity to around 85%

Step 21

Duplicate the elements layer

Drag the duplicate below the original layer in the layers palette

Select the Move tool and move the duplicated image away from the original

Ctrl + T to transform the object

At the top of the screen, set the width and height both to 80%

Duplicate the layer

Place the two layers side-by-side at the bottom of the canvas

Reduce the layer opacity of both layers to 10%

Merge these two layers together

Rename the layer ‘shadow’

Step 22

Place the players image slightly overlapping the elements layer at the top, and central to the elements layer width-ways

Merge these two layers together

Step 23

Open the Fabric Texture image

Image>Rotate Canvas>90°CW

Image>Image Size – apply the following settings:

Copy and paste it into your project

Ctrl + T to transform the object

Rotate the fabric image and move it to the right

Reduce the width so the fabric covers a bit more than half the canvas

Reduce the layer opacity to around 30%

Step 24

Drag out guides and place them as shown below:

Select the Pen tool using the following settings:

Create a path as shown below:

Step 25

Select the Type tool, African font, size 72pt, foreground colour white

Place the cursor in the middle of the path until the crossbar goes from straight to curved, then click the mouse key

Type ‘World Cup 2010’ - or your chosen language

Right click on the layer in the layers palette and click Rasterize Type – the path will disappear

Step 26

Select the Brush tool, hard, round brush size around 9px, foreground colour white

Paint in the lines in the middle of the letters to make the letters solid colour

Step 27

Double click on the layer in the layers palette to bring up the blending options and apply the default Drop Shadow settings.

Reduce the layer opacity to around 85%

You can now flatten the image, save it and apply it as your desktop wallpaper

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That was a marathon tutorial! If you got to the end of it, you deserve a pat on the back, not to mention a coffee at the very least! – and if you did make it to the end, I hope you think it was worth it and hope you enjoy viewing it each day on your screen until the end of the World Cup Tournament. Please give me your predicted World Cup winner for 2010 in the comments below – I know who I think will win, it will be interesting to see how many agree with me!