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Wallpaper tutorial

Since I recently started to make wallpapers again, I decided to make a little tutorial for the following wallpaper:

I took two promo pictures of BBC's series "Merlin and used a picture of Château de Pierrefonds I found at Wikipedia.

1) Open Photoshop and create a new file with the canvas size of 1024x768px.

2) Drag all the pictures into this new canvas and move them around till you're satisfied. I started with the Châreau, the Morgana, and then Arthur.

3) We start with the background layer (in this case it's the Château) and make Arthur and Morgana invisible by clicking on the little eyes (seepicture above).

4) I actually don't need the Château itself but want the forest, so I transform the layer, i.e. I make it bigger until there's just the trees and only a little Château.

5) Now, I use the Smart Blur filter, using the default settings since they're already perfect for my needs.
Filter --> Blur --> Smart Blur

6) Now, add a new adjustment layer to play with the colour.
Layer --> New Adjustment Layer --> Selective Colour

7) The background now is done and we can go on with Arthur and Morgana. They're still invisible, so make them visible again. ;)
I don't quite like the size of them so I play around, make Morgana bigger and Arthur a tad smaller before I actually start altering the layers.

8) Blending. There are other options as well, but this one is quick and all I need right now.
Select the lasso tool, set feather to something about 30px and start selecting certain parts of the layer, then click return. I usually do it a few times until I'm satiesfied.

9) When your done Arthur should look like this:

Now, do the same with Morgana. Just be careful that you don't erase too much of her.

10) Your picture now should look like this:

Not so bad, huh?! Anyway, sometimes the pictures aren't of good quality so you have to improve that. It's not necessary with these, but I'm going for a smooth, artistic look, so I use the Smart Blur filter again - this time for Arthur and Morgana.

Play a bit with the settings until you're satisfied. Then do the same with Arthur (Cmd+F on a Mac; Ctrl+F on a PC - I guess).

11) Now, go back to the Château layer and select certain parts of the forest with the lasso tool. Make a new layer via copy (right click, then select layer via copy).

Drag the new layer on top and repeat the procedure until you have some nice "border".

12) Now, I use this texture (made by me with brushes of the wonderful Annika van Holdt) and drag in on top, setting the blending options to "Saturation".

Now, take the eraser tool, pick a soft brush of the size 100 and set "Flow" to something like 30%. Erase those parts of the texture layer that cover their skin and you're done.
I also added some text brushes, but basically that's it. Now, I usually flatten the image and save it, though I tend to keep the .psd file for a couple of days until I'm sure I don't want to change anything anymore.

I hope, this was helpful and at least half understandable. :)