How to Make Wall Decals

1. Buy some contact paper at your local crafts store, dollar store or Target (they have great patterns!). Then, come up with some designs that you'd like to try. Trace or print them onto paper at the size you want to make sure they are exactly what you want on your walls.

2. Trace your wall decal design onto the contact paper and then cut it out with your knife or scissors. Be careful not to cut yourself or anything under the paper.

3. Tape the cut-out design onto your wall to make sure you've got the wall decal exactly where you want it. Then, once you've made any adjustments you might need, peel the back of the paper off and press onto the wall. Remove the tape, and you've got a great homemade wall decal!

You will need:

- Contact Paper

- Scissors

- Tape

- And of course a cool design

Blue Vintage Tutorial

Choose your image carefully

First of all I need to mention that some pictures are better suitable than others. It's a good thing to experiment a lot and find out if the result is to your liking. Btw, not all settings I suggest are written in stone. Sometimes you discover the best effect by accident. How it looks good for you also boils down to personal preference. Let's take this picture as an example and create this same effect.

Add contrast and saturation

Place the image in a separate layer. In the Layers palette click the adjustment layers menu icon and select "Brightness/Contrast". Check the preview option so you see the direct result. Set the Contrast to +20. Hit OK. Click the adjustment layers menu icon again and select "Hue/Saturation". Set the Saturation to +20. Hit OK.

Adjust curves

Add another adjustement layer. This time choose "Curves...". Select the Red channel and make sure the edit points icon is selected. Change the curve line a bit as show in the image above.

Select Green from the Channel dropdown menu and adjust the curve as shown in the image above.

Now select Blue from the Channel dropdown menu and adjust the curve as shown in the image above.

Add Vignette effect

Select the layer with your photo and go to the Filter menu and select "Convert for Smart Filters". Doing this means you can apply filters to the photo while leaving your original in tact. First you'll get a message that says the layer will be converted into a smart object. Click OK. With this approach you'll be able to adjust the filters you've applied at any time. These Smart Filters work a bit like Adjustments layers but then with filter effects.

 Now go to the Filter menu and select Distort > Lens Correction. In the Vignette option set the amount to -100 and the midpoint to +50. Hit the OK button. You'll see the Smart Filter appear below the layer. Double clicking this will open the Lens Correction filter options again where you can adjust anything you want. Double clicking the slider icon on the right will give you the option to adjust the layer mode and the transparency of the effect on the layer. Set the value to 70%. Now that's pretty neat stuff if you ask me :)

Add some Colorisation

Your photo should look pretty dramatic right now with a lot of contrast. Now we'll tone it all down again, but of course with a special effect to make it look like an old photo. In the Layers palette click the adjustment layers menu icon again and select "Hue/Saturation". Check the Colorize option in the bottom right corner as well as Preview. Drag the sliders until you get a bit of a sepia duo tone effect on your photo just as shown in the picture above. Change the opacity of this adjustement layer to 50%.

The final touch

You could say OK we're done, but there is one little accent that our photo needs to give that real vintage touch. These photos always have some pinkish glow as if colors are faded from the sun. Therefor click the adjustment layers menu icon in the Layers palette again and select "Solid Color". Select a very bright hot pink magenta color and click OK. Change the opacity of the layer to 5%. That's it. Now you should have a vintage photo.

Before and after

Here is another example:

Make sure you experiment with the settings of these adjustement layers and filters. Like I said before the outcome differs a lot on the chosen image and also on the settings. My apologies to Marco that it took some time to bring this online. Hope you enjoyed this tutorial and learned a few things again :)

Curvy Cross Processing BY Mark Fleming

This tutorial describes one of my favorite techniques for ‘spicing’ up a photograph. This method is adapted from the color darkroom of old. In those days, innovative photographers often processed film in a chemical solution intended for another type of film. For instance, they might process color slide film in C-41 chemicals. The result yielded a most unusual shift in color, which created a very retro look. To recreate this technique using the computer is both easy and fun.
Begin with a processed image that has high contrast. Despite selecting a high contrast image, add even more contrast by selecting a curves adjustment layer from your layers palette.

Repeat this process by adding yet another curves adjustment layer, this layer will be used to create the cross processed look. Inside that curves adjustment layer you will select each channel individually from the drop down menu, begin with the Red Channel.
The basic rule of thumb is to raise the red and green in the highlights, and to drop the red and green in the shadows. The reverse is true in the blue channel.

 

 

 

Drop the blue in the highlights and raise the blue in the shadows.
Note as you work through the previous steps that much of the adjusting is based on your own personal preference. Each of your adjustments is up to you and should match your vision of how the image should look.
At the conclusion of these steps, the result will resemble a twisted helix

 

Once you have completed your desired adjustments to each channel, click ok to immediately change the blending mode to color.
As a final touch, you may choose to add even a bit more contrast. It is surprising just how much contrast a cross processing layer will pull out of your image.

 

You have now created a fine cross processed digital image.