Seamless Background Tiles in Photoshop: Starry Night

Many people who have absolutely no interest in web design find themselves needing to learn bits of it - and usually, the bits center around graphics. Blogs and personal pages on sites like MySpace and IMVU all have options for you to personalize your personal space, but you have to know how to make some graphics to do it.

Using Photoshop, creating your own backgrounds for any number of purposes (including scrapbooking, as I recently learned) is easy. You need a couple tools, and you’re ready to go - but don’t stress, I’ll even show you how to load them up in this quick and easy guide.

Part 1: Gather & Install Tools

One: You’ll need to download 2 files. One is a filter package by Redfield, and the other is a set of star brushes. Each are free to download and use. Grab the Redfield package here: http://redfieldplugins.com/RedfieldPlugins.exe. Then, download the star brushes here: http://www.red-webs.com/easyelements/brushes/star-brush-set-PSE3.zip. Save the files to your desktop or somewhere else you’ll easily remember them.

Two: The Redfield filter package is the easiest. Make sure you do not have Photoshop open, and then double-click the file you downloaded. It will install by itself, just like any normal software.

Three: Now, to install the brushes. If you know how to install brushes, have at it. Otherwise, follow along. You first need to unzip the file you downloaded. Just right-click it and choose “Extract here” or “Unzip here”. Two files appear - an .abr file and a .txt file. The .txt is nice, included by the creator of the brushes, and tells you where to place this brush set.

If you don’t want to read the .txt, read this: go to “My Computer”, open your hard drive (usually C), and then open the Programs folder. Inside this folder, open Adobe and then open Photoshop. Now, open Presets, and go to the Brushes folder. You can drag & drop your .abr file here.

Yay! You’ve got the tools installed!

Part 2: Create Some Stars