In this article, you will learn how to create a standard YouTube channel background. Granted, your image editor should have layering capabilities in order to be compatible with the tutorial (so don’t use Microsoft Paint), and it really is what you make it. Creativity isn’t included, so make sure to bring your own.

Preparing The Canvas

It doesn’t really matter if you have updated to the Cosmic Panda YouTube interface or if you have just stuck with the original. This background should work with whatever you are using, but if you find something wrong with it, then just crop and alter as you see fit. I will be using Photoshop Elements 9 for this tutorial, but like I said, you should be able to follow along, and I will try to write as generally as possible.

First, you should open up a new file with dimensions that have a width of 1800 pixels and a height of 1298 pixels. This will serve as your main background, so if you plan on adding any artwork to this layer, then you will end up only seeing part of it. As mentioned in the MakeUseOf article about creating a Twitter background, you should limit all artwork on this layer.

As a note, you should know that if you are using Cosmic Panda, then it is likely that only the top half of this graphic will be viewable (up to a rough estimate of 650 pixels). However, for those that are using the original YouTube theme, you should go into your YouTube settings and make the background color match the background graphic that you are creating.

Setting Up The Dividers

YouTube backgrounds are a little difficult to work with because instead of aligning left, they happen to align right. That is why you should set up a couple of dividers as visual reminders that let you know just how much space you have to work in. To help solve this, you should open up a new file that has a width of 416 pixels and a height of 1298 pixels. After you have opened this one, make another one that has a width of 976 pixels and 1298 pixels. When you have created them both, use the paint bucket to fill them with two bright contrasting colors.

After you have completed this task, copy and paste the smaller divider as a new layer onto your main background. Line it up perfectly against the right side of the project window. You should do the same with the second larger image, except line it up against the side of its smaller counterpart.

As you might be able to guess, the larger one serves as a place holder for where most of your channel content will be shown, and with that being said, if you feel like adding content in the same area as the smaller divider, then this is your chance. Just know that all content in this divider area can be hidden if the browser window is resized.

Creating A Side Banner

As you may know, YouTube only allows its affiliates to have fully-fledged banners at the top of their channels. However, as a standard user, you can get around this by placing an image on the left side of your channel’s content. That being said, since it is merely a background, the image could be covered due to window resizing in some browser displays.

To create this banner, you should open a new file that has a width of 226 pixels and a height of 622 pixels. Try to use either a transparent background or a background that matches your main canvas’ color, and then place whatever artwork you desire within this box.

After you have completed doing so, you should copy and paste the entire image onto your main canvas, placing it just next to the larger divider and touching the very top border. I used a simple color for the sake of the tutorial, but what you put in this box is completely up to you.

If you are satisfied with how your background will appear, you are now free to delete both dividers. I recommend saving as a JPEG file when it comes to YouTube, but if you can manage to save your background as a different file under the required size limits, then by all means do so. Furthermore, do not select the option to repeat your image vertically or horizontally after uploading it to YouTube.

After all is said and done, you could very well end up with an image like the one below. Don’t mind the extra space to the left and to the bottom, for these voids will be unseen when viewed in a browser.

Conclusion

Hopefully, this tutorial has helped you with making your own YouTube background. As an endnote, I want to remind you that each of the elements are fully customizable, so bend and tweak them however you see fit.

What other methods do you use to create YouTube backgrounds, and which editing software did you use to make yours? Also, where can we find your YouTube backgrounds?

Adobe Photoshop Elements offers users a way to create their own Photo Books that can either be printed right at home or even sent to a fancy publisher. This project is a relatively easy one, and in the end it will give you something nice to put on your coffee table.

Getting Everything Started

Before beginning, you should decide if you want to open all the photos that you want to include in your Photo Book within your Project Bin. However, with so many files open, this could cause your machine to run unnecessarily hot. You can always choose to bypass this option, for there is a way to add photos without them being in your Project Bin, but we will get to that later.

Despite how familiar you may be with Elements, you may actually have some trouble finding out how exactly to begin your Photo Book project. When you open up Elements, you will notice the sidebar on the right. At the top of the bar, there is a button that says “Create“. Click it, and it will then give you many project creations to choose from, including the Photo Book selection.

After beginning your project, you will be given a variety of Photo Book sizes and styles to choose from. Each of them are compatible with your home printer, but I would advise that you use glossy paper and some form of binding if you choose to print them this way. You will see that there are three distinct sizing choices – Kodak and Shutterfly being two of them.

By choosing these, you can have your book printed professionally and then shipped to you. Kodak publishing is available to all users, but Shutterfly printing is only accessible to members of Photoshop Plus. Furthermore, you might happen to see that many of the style selections have a gold ribbon on their thumbnails. These items are also only available to those with Plus.

As aforementioned, if you decided to open the photos up in your Project Bin, the menu gives you an autofill function which allows you to have all the photos automatically inserted in your Photo Book. Another part of this menu is the page number option, which requires you to have a 20 page minimum if you are printing with Kodak or Shutterfly. However, you can have as little as two pages if you are printing locally.

Customizing The Template

To be perfectly honest with you, getting started is the hardest part. After that, everything is pretty much smooth-sailing, and you will only have to make minor alterations to the project. Such a small change might be the fact that you want to change your template a little.

The first, and most basic, alteration you will want to make is the title of your Photo Book. Basically, just double-click each text block, tweak it, and you’re good to go. You are given the additional choice of adding more text blocks in the sidebar, so feel free to add captions to your photos as you work.

As far as basic customization goes, Elements allows you to change the layout of each page, the background, and even the frame-style of each photograph. These choices are good if you want to make something quick and easy, and much like how there is the ability to add text blocks from the sidebar menu, there are options for each of these. These items can be used to alter the various elements of your project by merely dragging and dropping the thumbnails into your work area.

Keep in mind that these are incredibly basic options for editing the theme of your Photo Book. However, if you look below your work area, you will see a button that says “Switch to Advanced Mode“. This will allow you to edit each section of the Photo Book using layers and the more specific Photoshop tools.

Selecting Your Photos

As I mentioned before, you could just drag and drop photos from your Project Bin into the Photo Book template. However, if you choose not to do this, you can click the empty photo slots from the layout and insert the photos manually.

This section of the tutorial is fairly straightforward, and about the only technical aspect of it might be the fact you would like to resize or crop your photos. Just double click the photo you want to alter, and then you will be provided with options to resize, pan, rotate, and even change your selection.

Conclusion

After you have completed all the pages of your project, you will find the options to print your Photo Book or order one from Kodak or Shutterfly. If you choose to print your project professionally, the Elements Organizer will load and provide you with an order form.

What other ideas can you contribute to this tutorial? Have you ever made a Photo Book? What methods do you use for your creations?

Image Credit: sideshowmom

Before we even get to Photoshop, you need to choose effective subject matter – you can’t simply tilt shift anything and expect to get a good result. Generally, you want something taken from high up, where you are looking down upon something. Panaramas can work well as long as they are focused on something at ground level rather than the sky or skyline.

Here’s one I chose to work with today, taken from the top of Kyoto station looking south:

Load in your image and decide where you want the focus point to be – this is where your image will be the sharpest and most visible in detail.

Start by selecting a fairly large size brush with soft edges. In my high-pixel photo, I chose a brush size of about 400px with 0 hardness.

Next, enter quick mask mode by pressing Q. You’ll notice the colour pallet has turned black and white, and the little icon beneath shows a white circle in a grey frame.

Paint the area you’ve chosen to focus on with your brush. It should be a red highlighter (this is called quick masking). It doesn’t need to be entirely horizontal, but aim to paint a large line across where you want to focus. Aim to cover about a quarter or a third of your photo.

Now, exit quick mask mode and you should see selection marks appear around the area you didn’t paint the mask onto. Without deselecting that area, go up to Filters -> Blur -> Lens Blur. I suggest a blur radius of around 30 (ignore all the other settings), but play around with it yourself as this is the most important part of the process – beyond this we will just be adjusting colouring.

Apply the effect when finished and hit Ctrl-Shift-D to deselect and see it applied to your image fully without the selection marks.

Next, open up the Image -> Adjustments -> Hue/Saturation dialog box. Increase the saturation until you get something you like – this makes a more realistic looking ‘model’ than the dreary colours of everyday life. In this photo, I went up to about 50!

Next, open up the Image -> Adjustments -> Levels dialog. Brightness levels are a difficult concept, but I’ll try to explain what I understand simply. The flat parts on either side of the graph are extremes in black and white that aren’t being used. By dragging the sliders in, you’ll be ensuring that the darkest parts of your image can be displayed as dark as possible, and the same for whites. This will give you a greater contrast. The middle slider can then be used to adjust any imbalances overall, if you find the resulting preview too dark for instance. These were my final settings and the effect they created.

Finally, I like to ramp up the contrast and add a little more brightness using the Image -> Adjustments -> Brightness/Contrast. After putting contrast up to a full 100 and adding 19 to the brightness, I was left with the final product looking like this:

Cool huh? Here’s a few more I whipped up around Kyoto and Tokyo.

If you’ve had a go yourself and want to show off your creations, feel free to post links in the comments, as I’d love to see this being put to use. Don’t forget to check out all other Photoshop articles too.

Instead of calling your Hot Pocket loving neighbor Jim who says he “might teach you how to do it… for a price,” you’ve come to us, and it’s a good thing you did, because MakeUseOf always delivers with no compensation required.

Setting Up the Main Background

Proper pixel dimensions are key when it comes to creating Twitter backgrounds, so you will need to start off by creating a new Photoshop file that is just the right size. The dimensions that we are going to use for this project will have a width of 2560 pixels and a height of 1600 pixels.

The purpose for such a big size is that it provides just enough breathing room for large-screen monitors, so try to keep your design simple. Keep in mind that only part of it is going to show on most of your followers’ screens, so don’t fret too much over making a full-size, Louvre-worthy background image.

Because my Twitter account uses a black and white theme that matches my personal site, I will be keeping it simple with a plain background. However, if you want to get crazy, I would suggest going old school with a nice radial gradient, or perhaps you could use a hand-drawn picture or photograph.

Preparing the Side Graphic

Twitter doesn’t provide the option of adding a header or banner image to your account, so the next best thing is to have a customized graphic or logo on the side of your stream using the main background itself. In essence, the side graphic is a virtual billboard, for it allows you to add web URLs, Facebook information, and anything else that you want to include that is relevant to your account. Unfortunately, nothing on it is clickable, so just consider it to be eye-candy.

For example, MakeUseOf’s graphic takes up the entire side of the page with a nice artistic depiction of the site. To make something like this, you should open a totally new Photoshop file with dimensions that have a width of 235 pixels and a height of 700 pixels.

The sizing of this image is actually pretty variable, but the general idea is to make it as visible as you can without it running into your stream. You have a surprisingly large field to work within, so don’t worry about not having enough room. Based on the upcoming step, I would advise using a totally transparent background layer or one that matches the color of your earlier Photoshop project.

Putting it All Together

So now that you’ve finished both your main background and your side graphic, it’s time to put them both together. First, go to the project window of your side graphic, select all, and then click “copy merged.” After this, go back to your main background, and paste your side graphic right on top of it, lining it up against the top left corner of the window. Be warned that if you don’t line it up properly, it could be covered by a portion of your stream or run off the page.

Despite how small the side graphic may appear to be right now, it’s going to take up quite a bit of real estate when viewed in a browser. This is exactly why you should keep the artistic focus on your side graphic, for your followers will likely be paying the most attention to it. After you are finished, I would suggest that you finish things off by saving the background as a PNG file.

As you can tell with my own Twitter account, the side graphic is just to the left of my stream and totally out of the way. You may notice, however, that if the browser window is open in a small size, the side graphic will be mostly covered by your stream. This is normal, so don’t worry about it.

Since the side graphic is part of the background, it is cropped when you resize the window even though the stream content still stays in view. The issue may primarily be noticed by Mac users seeing that Snow Leopard does not allow full-screen viewing unless the window is manually resized.

Conclusion

So now that you are a Twitter background-making fool, you can play around with these guidelines to make something sexier than my own Plain Jane design. All in all, it’s a really nice graphics skill to know, especially if you are in the business of marketing and graphic design. As an endnote, you could probably adapt these same guidelines to something like Pixelmator or the GIMP.

We’d love to see your own creations, so follow MakeUseOf on Twitter and give us a shout-out that will direct us to your own Photoshop Frankensteins. Also, since the process is all about customization, do you make your Twitter backgrounds any differently? In what ways did this method help you?

Image Credit: mzacha

Note: You’ll need the Extended version of Photoshop to do this, as it includes the Animation components. You’ll also need a very basic working knowledge of Photoshop, as I’m not going to explain key concepts such as layers, or how to trash them or make them invisible. Windows users, replace CMD with CTRL, and OPTION with ALT keys in the tutorial.

Movies, Timelines & QuickMasks

Go ahead and open up a video file as you would any other file. If the animation window doesn’t automatically load, turn it on from the Windows menu. Here I’ve chosen a little video I took on my iPhone of a squirrel in St James Park, London.

Find the small icon for the animation drop down menu in the top right of the timeline, as we’re going to be using it a lot. Click it, and find the Document Settings. Change the frame rate to about 15 if it’s higher. Generally, videos will start out at about 30 frames per seconds, which is too high for simple animations.

Next, get familiar with the timeline a little more. Along the top of the timeline is a blue pointer which indicates the current frame in the sequence. Drag it to scrub back and forth through your movie. There are also play controls in the bottom right.

Drag the pointer to where you want your movie to start. Now, drag the blue rectangle that marks the start of the movie to where your pointer has moved to. Hold down the shift key to have it snap onto your pointer location. If you hit play again, you should notice that the movie now begins where you set it to.

Drag the marker again to where you want the movie to end, and do the same with the small blue end marker from the right hand side. Now preview again, and you should see the basic loop of your movie taking place. If everything is good, select Trim Document Duration to Work Area from the timeline menu again in the top right.

Next, you need to find your master frame – this is the one frame of video that will be the backdrop – the bit of your animation that doesn’t move. Scrub the marker until you see the desired frame, then hit CMD-A to select all and CMD-C to copy, then CMD-V to paste. This should create a new layer with your selected keyframe.

Next, hit the Q key to open QuickMask mode. Select the paintbrush tool and a suitable size brush, and begin to paint the areas of your movie that you wish to remain static. In QuickMask mode, you should see them highlighted red when you paint (if not, you’re not in quick mask mode, so undo and try again). Leave the areas which have the moving element of the movie that you want to retain.

Having highlighted all the bits of the scene that you want to stay still, hit Q again to exit the QuickMask mode, then hold ALT and click the Add Layer Mask button on the layer palette. That’s the button on the bottom that’s a rectangle with a circle in it.

This should create a new layer mask on the still image keyframe layer, like below.

At this point you should be able to preview your animation if both layers are visible, just hit play in the animation window. You can also still crop the animation if you wish, as I did in this case. This is now a good indication of what your final Cinemagraph is going to look like – the rest of the steps are simply how to export this into an animated GIF.

Export The Animation

Click the animation menu again and select Flatten Frames Into Layers. This will create a bunch of layers, each a single frame in the movie. Delete the original keyframe image, and the movie layer, leaving only the animation frame layers you just created.

Next, turn the movie into a Frame Animation by clicking this button in the bottom right of the animation timeline window. When you do this, only one frame will be created, but don’t worry.

Next, back to the animation menu and select Make Frames From Layers. This will convert all your animation layers into Frames.

Finally, your frame animation has a long pause at the beginning. Click on the first frame to bring up the delay menu. You can either remove it completely, or start adding different delays on various frames if you want a particular timing effect.

Finally, you want the animation to loop forever, not just play once, so just beneath the initial frame click the drop-down that says ONCE and change it to FOREVER.

Now you’r ready to save. From the File menu, select Save for The Web & Devices. Choose the file-type GIF, and reduce the physical size if necessary. Remember there’s a indication of final file size in the bottom left, so play around with the settings to get this as low as possible. I suggest using a pattern dither, and reducing the number of colours to around 32 or 64, with a Selective colour selection.

Conclusion

Obviously, if your camera was shaking in the original movie like mine was then the effect is going to be a little odd, and it’s also best if it’s able to loop seamlessly. I’m sure you can do better though. If you’ve made your own Cinemagraph, feel free to share a link to it in the comments, and we’ll see who’s the best. You can also read all our other Photoshop articles and tutorials here.

Personally, Pixelmator is my everyday go-to image editor. I use it to create all of the image featured on my website, TheDailyBuggle. Very rarely do I feel the need to use Photoshop for the purpose of simple image editing, plus Pixelmator is more intuitive anyway, in my humble opinion.

Perhaps the most significant enhancement since we initially reviewed Pixelmator was the addition of 64-bit architecture support, which resulted in huge performance improvements. I’m not really going to dive into the details about what makes Pixelmator tick and the technologies used to drive it. If you’re really interested in those details, I’d recommend that you read up here — it’s better than me trying to explain it to you anyway. I’ll be showing you how Pixelmator works and how you can integrate it into your image editing workflow.

Pixelmator is compatible with over 100 different file formats including PSD, TIFF, JPEG, PNG, PDF and EPS; so you’ll have no trouble opening just about any image in Pixelmator. It can also output images in a whole load of image formats, which we’ll discuss a little later.

Did you know that you could get a free 30-day fully-functional trial of Pixelmator? Download it now and give it a whirl. The first thing you’ll notice about it is it’s sleek interface — it belongs on a Mac. Everything else just falls into place. Unlike Photoshop, there’s no bounding window. Instead, you’re presented with floating toolbars which you’re free to re-arrange however you want. It’s very tightly integrated with OS X, providing you access to iPhoto, smart albums, iSight, and Aperture.

On the left, you have the instruments you’ll need to edit your images. Pixelmator provides a variety of 4 selection tools: Rectangular Marque tool, Elliptical Marque tool, Lasso tool, Polygonal Lasso tool and the Magic Wand. In addition, you also get an assortment of freestyle painting tools: Pencil, Brush, Eraser, Magic Eraser, Paint Bucket tool and Gradient tool. Not forgetting, the high-sought Clone Stamp tool is also included. Essentially, its a complete toolkit for basic image editing.

If you look carefully on the right-hand side of the screenshot above, you’ll see something that resembles a layers palette. In fact, it is — Pixelmator is a layers-based image editor. Like Photoshop, it allows you to blend layers, adjust their intensities, create clipping and layer masks to accurately edit your photos.

In regards to image correction, Pixelmator is no slouch. It has all of the powerful adjustment tools that Photoshop has — Levels, Curves, Exposure, Colour Balance, Channel Mixer, Colour Replacement, Hue and Saturation and of course, Brightness and Contrast. Just about everything you need to properly adjust your photos can be found in Pixelmator, including over 60 Quartz Composer and 130 Core Image-powered filters and effects, which you can preview in real-time.

A fun feature of Pixelmator, one which I’m sure a lot of users will utilise is the ability to export directly to Facebook, Picasa and Flickr.

Pixelmator supports the popular image formats and allows you to easily export them as JPEG, PNG, TIFF, PSD and PDF with a single click. However, what you don’t see are the other formats that it’s capable of exporting: WEBP, GIF, PICT, ART, AVI, AVS, BMP, DNG, DOT, DPX, EPDF, EPI, EPT, FAX, FIG, FITS, FPX, GPLT, JP2, MAN, MONO, MNG, MPEG, M2V, MPC, MSL, MTV, MVG, OTB, PCL, PCX, PDB, PDF, PFA, PFB, PGM, PICON, PIX, PNM, PPM, PS, PS2, PS3, PTIF, PWP, RAD, RLA, RLE, SCT, SFW, SGI, SUN, TGA, TIM, TTF, UIL, UYVY, VICAR, VIFF, WBMP, WPG, XBM, XCF, XPM.

If you’re a preparing an image to be shared online, Pixelmator will grant you the option of saving a web-optimised version of JPEG, PNG or GIF.

If you’ll be using Pixelmator for painting, you’ll be pleased to know that it supports the use of a graphics tablet and almost every brush property can be adjusted; from its size, hardness, spacing, flow, stroke jitter, as well as the graphics table sensitivity.

Give it a try. Its tight integration with OS X and beautifully simple interface might just encourage you to stop using GIMP. If you’re happy to purchase Pixelmator, you’ll find it on the Mac App Store for $59.99.

We’re giving away 25 copies of Pixelmator this week, don’t miss out on the change to win this fantastic image editor for free!

How do I win a copy?

It’s simple, just follow the instructions.

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This giveaway begins now and ends Sunday, May 22nd at 2100hrs PDT. The winners will be selected at random and informed via email.

Spread the word to your friends and have fun!

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