I’ve been making wallpapers for over a year, but in the past few months I’ve become more interested in learning how to do more with my program. Primiarly since so many of my past wallpapers are in my opinion, terrible. So in addition to getting the manual on how to use my adobe photoshop elements 4.0 program, I’ve also been checking out various tutorials on how to do different effects.

I made this wallpaper, which I submitted to my account over at theOtaku.com


But I am not satisfied with it so I’ve been working on it and this is where I am now.


If you have any specific tips or suggestions, or if you see any glaring mistakes I would greatly appreciate your input. I intend to eventually submit it here as well, but only if I can get it to meet the requirements, so input on things that would get it rejected would be very helpful.

Both look good, but to me it all looks too busy. But what should I know, Im new at this, sorry. But it seems you may need to go with a simpler, more organic background.

I think it looks nice.. the second version looks better than the first version.. but i think the scan is too bright.. okay.. when you set it to overlay/soft light.. set the opacity down to 76 - 80% so it wont look that bright.. i dont think the background is too busy.. i think it looks fine.. i just don't get what the background is supposed to be.. is it water?? make it look like water.. don't make it too realistic though.. it doesn't look like water right now.. (if it is supposed to be water) ... i don't like that red border.. it doesn't really make the wallpaper look more interesting.. and it doesn't look like a design.. so.. try removing it.. my suggestion is.. put some glowing stuff on her.. like.. use the color white.. if you don't have some glowing stuff brushh.. just click the brush tool.. then click the round and soft brush.. make it a lil big ( not too big though) then click on her legs.. and round it.. just change sizes for every dots.. then just click on the upper part with a smaller brush.. then right click that layer.. and click blending mode.. and click glowing (something like that) then just pick the color of the glow that you want.. good start though! keep it up! GOOD LUCK!!!!! ^______________________^

Thank you for the input. I appreciate it. I lowered the opacity a bit so it’s not as bright and since it is suppose to be water I’ve changed it and given it a blue color this time. I still like the red, but I can see how it would make it harder to see that it’s water. I’ve removed the border altogether. And though I’m not completely sure on the applying a glow to her legs bit, I gave it a shot. I’m not sure if what I did is what you had in mind though.

I also fixed some mistakes on the extraction of the character as I noticed a few spots where I missed a bit of the original background.



Again, any tips, suggestions or pointing out mistakes would be appreciated. I’d like to submit it, but being new to this site I’ve no idea if I’m even close to what is considered acceptable.