Making a Fancy Pop Style Poster

Make your Photoshop file

First of all we need to create our PS file, go to File>new or hit Ctrl + N to display the "New" window, then set up a 1000 x 1000 pixels canvas, 72 dpi and RGB color mode.

Start making our background

The first thing that you need to know is that we're going to work a lot with gradients and masks, so it's important that you become friends with the pen tool and layers panel. Make click on the new fill button and choose gradient.

And now adjust your gradient according to the following screenshot:

Let's add a new gradient layer in top of this one and set it up according to the following parameters.

Make sure that your screen shows the same thing that the screenshots do.

And to make it look nicer, switch its blending mode to darken.

With these two gradients we have established the main tone of our background.

Create the halftone texture

Making textures is one of the most amusing things to do in Photoshop, because with such amount of filters, effects and brushes, the possibilities are just gigantic. On this case we made a fancy halftone texture to place on top of the two gradients that we previously created. For start, let's make a new layer and then change the default colors at the toolbar.

And now we add some clouds to begin our texture, you need to go to Filter>Render>Clouds.

And there you have them, some fancy clouds that will make the start of our texture.

Then we need to experiment a little with filters, look for Filter>Pixelate>Color Halftone.

In our background's case, we decided to leave the values exactly like the following screenshot:

And this is what we obtained:

Having the layer selected, go to Image>Adjustments>Channel Mixer to make it black and white.

Check the monochrome field and then play a little bit with the handlers to set up the maximum contrast possible.

Good, now we need to select the layer and go to Image>Adjustments>Invert or simply click Ctrl + I.

Because we already had our basic color palette established, just create a new layer behind the halftone and fill it using the paint bucket, then select the halftone layer and switch its blending mode to multiply.

If you want to add a little extra definition to our halftone, you can add a gradient map adjustment layer and configure it according to these parameters:

Great, now you can flatten all the layers that we used to create the texture.

Finally you need to switch the blending mode to Overlay and then reduce the opacity to 2 %.

Beautiful isn't it?, having this texture done we can continue with the remaining elements of our background. The upcoming element is a new gradient fill.

It's important to set the gradient type to diamond and mostly pay a lot of attention to the opacity values.

You need to be wise when using gradients, many times the most subtle element can hardly affect an entire artwork.

The last step before finishing this fill is switch the blending mode to color dodge.

Another fill goes in top of this, let's see what this is about.

Having the gradient set, proceed by switching the blending mode to color dodge and then reduce the opacity to 58 %.

Using the pen tool, let's trace the following path in a new layer.

And now enter a new gradient fill, you will see how it gets masked within the path that we just did.

Reduce its opacity to 50 % and the fill to 40 % to make it look nicer and more subtle.

Click on the "fx" button at the layer menu to add a new effect, on this case it's going to be stroke.

And adjust the properties according to the next screenshot:

Look how great our object looks, a simple effect such as stroke can add a lovely touch to our gradient.

Grab the pen tool one more time to create the following shape:

We trace them beyond the canvas' boundaries to make sure that nothing gets outside the wished area.

Then we go to the layers window and insert a new gradient fill, pay attention to the upcoming screenshots to see how you need to proceed.

And in the middle zone of the gradient we add an extra handler with 20 % opacity.

One more thing, let's go back to the layers window and add a new effect, on this case it's going to be inner glow.

The inner glow properties will be customized exactly like the following screenshot:

Look how brilliant our background is turning into, how would imagine that it was this easy to do.

We're getting closer, don't remember to always have a cup of coffee (or a glass of orange juice if you don't like caffeine) to keep hydrated during this Photoshop marathon, now we're ready to draw the next shape.

And then as usual, we continue by adding a gradient to be masked within the path.

And just like we did on a previous background, insert an additional handler with a reduced opacity value.

Good, then as we did before, let's add an inner glow effect to our object.

Check out the values that we established for this inner glow effect:

Take a look to the results, we're doing a neat job, just a few more details and our design will be complete.

Keep it up, this is how the next path is going to look, grab your pen tool and start drawing.

You know what to do, it's time to add a new gradient, so it's time to get down to business.

And having this part completed, select the layer and then reduce the opacity value to 75 % and the fill to 40 %.

The final part before completing this element is add a stroke effect, which you can do directly from the layers window.

These are the parameters that you need to follow regarding this effect:

Awesome, with every object that we complete our design is getting nicer and more eye-catching.

Now we're getting closer to the end of this tutorial, the next path to trace is the following:

And the gradient fill that goes inside this path is the following:

Note: If you find a screenshot of just one opacity handler and there's no trace of the other, it means that the missing handler has a 100 % opacity.

Having the gradient finished, select the layer and reduce the opacity value to 90 % and the fill to 40 %, then look for the add effect button and insert a new stroke effect to the element.

These are the parameters under which you need to configure the stroke effect on this case:

Notice how our design is looking so far, if there's something clearly different being showed at your screen, then we suggest you to review the whole tutorial to see what mistake you have possibly committed.

Just two more elements before we start adding the little details, one more time. it's time to use the pen tool

Fill the path using the following gradient:

As we did before, an extra handler goes in the middle of the gradient with a reduced opacity value.

This element has both the stroke and inner glow effect, so let's see how to adjust them.

That was inner glow, the deal with stroke is different and goes this way:

We're done with this elements, let's zoom out and take a look to our art piece.

And finally, the last gradient element, first of all draw the path using our famous pen tool.

What color may look good in our design?, let's try with a blue/green gradient and see how that turns out.

Great, now the middle handler to reduce the opacity, then some effects and we're done with this object.

As we told you, just a couple of effects before finishing this element, let's begin with inner glow.

And the other effect is going to be stroke, let's see how it works:

Awesome, we have finished making gradients, let's take a look to our fancy background.

The only thing left to do is add a couple of lens flare elements to add some nice details to our design. We launched a nice tutorial a while ago where we showed you how to create your own lens flare brush in Photoshop, you can visit the tutorial and then add a couple of lens flare elements to the design.

It's preferable to place each lens flare element on independent layers, select them both and switch the blending mode to overlay, with this adjustments we have completely our background, let's take a look to it.

Sorry, that layers menu is blocking us for looking the whole design, but that's for you to remember that final adjustment, here's a proper preview of the background:

Finally, we took a great text effect from one of our previous tutorials (visit our "Stylish text effect tutorial using Illustrator") and placed it on top of our background, additionally we adjust its hue a little bit to integrate it a little bit more with the design.

To insert the text, simply copy paste it from Illustrator, make sure that's inserted as a Smart Object so it keeps all its editability properties. Finally add some outer glow to it and the text is done. Now we may want to place a fancy character to make our design look very pop-like. You may want to take a loot at WordPressThemeShock's gallery, where you will find some awesome characters and web designs.

 
OK now we have finished our background design, hopefully this has provided you some inspiration and technical tips that you can now implement in your own designs, feel free to leave us a comment so we can read your thoughts regarding our articles, thanks for visiting Tutorialshock.