Making wallpaper is lots of fun, although it can be taxing on your system memory-wise, due to the size of the graphics you are creating.   So my first bit of advice is to have only your tutorial open with PSP when you’re making wallpaper.

I have been starting with an image of 1024 x 768, then resizing it when I’m finished to 800 x 600 and offering both sizes for download.  This is entirely up to you.  More and more people are getting new computers with bigger screen resolutions, but I like to cater to both sizes myself.  Naturally, if you are making a wallpaper for your own computer, you would size it to fit your  current screen settings.  If you are not aware of your screen size, there’s an easy way to find out.  Simply click with your right mouse button on your computer desktop, go down to Properties and open them, then click the “settings” tab.  You will see your screen settings just above the Advanced button. 

Next order of business is to download a 30 day trial version of Paint Shop Pro from Jasc, if you don’t already have it.
Then open PSP and create a new file at 1024 pixels wide by 768 pixels high, transparent/16 million colors. 

Now, making wallpaper is pretty much a “personal” thing as far as colours, images and the like.
If you plan to offer your wallpaper for download from your website, you must be careful not to use PSP tubes or other images that are copyrighted to another artist.  If you want to use something, the best thing to do is write the creator and ask for permission.  This avoids a lot of heartache in the long run!  If you’re just making a paper for your own use, the sky’s the limit as far as graphics go.

So now you will decide what colours or patterns you want to use for your wallpaper.   I chose a plain background, a plaid and then using my colour picker, chose a colour from my plaid for the middle layer of my paper.  Once you open your image, flood fill with the plain background you have chosen.  Go to Selections/Select All.  Then to Selections/Modify and Contract by 50.  You might find contracting this much will take a few seconds, especially if your computer hasn’t got much memory.  Now add a new layer, and floodfill with your plaid or alternate pattern and then Selections/Modify and contract by 30.  Add another layer and floodfill the center with the colour you’ve chosen.  This is what your canvas will look like at this point.  I have just taken a portion of mine to show you, due to page loading time.  Naturally yours will display the full image.

I decided then to use a little Amish couple I had made and tubed from a tutorial.  So at this point, choose the tube or graphics you want to use on your wallpaper, and copy and paste each as a new layer onto your canvas.  After I pasted my couple on my canvas, I decided to add a drop shadow with the following settings:

Repeat your drop shadow, but change the Horizontal and Vertical to minus two. (-2)
Next I decided my paper was a bit plain, so wanted to “spice it up” a bit.   At this point I chose to add some little tufts of grass at the feet of my couple, as well as a flower between them to make it look like he was giving the little girl a posy. 

The butterfly and flower tubes used for this tutorial came from DixieLady.   The watering can came from Lori’s Tubes

You may, if you like, add text to your wallpaper.  I chose not to this time.  Now all that’s left to do is merge your layers – Layers/Merge/Merge visible, then save it a final time.  Before closing my original paper, I went to Image/Resize and resized it to a resolution of 800x600 pixels, then went to Effects/Sharpen and just sharpened the image once.

And you’re done! 
The possibilites are endless when you’re making desktop wallpaper. 
I hope you enjoyed this tutorial, and if you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to Email me. 
 

Click HERE to see my finished wallpaper in 1024x768 resolution

Click HERE to see it in 800x600 resolution