This tutorial will cover 5 basic steps in creation of a graphic that can be used as blog header graphics. So what we will do:

1. Collecting necessary graphic elements: background, font and installing the brush

2. Start a new image in Photoshop

3. Add elements

4. Save for web

Ok. For this tutorial I have decided to create a grunge style graphic, because I like this stye and it's quite popular these days.

So, here is what to do. Before starting I suggest you create a special folder for this small project and call it, say, "PSBrushHubTutorial". Put all the graphic elements that we will download in that folder.

1. Get the background for the graphics. I got mine from Graphics&Illustrations web site, it's free and it suits my purposes well. Save the image in the folder you just created for this purpose.

2. Get the font. I got mine from Bittbox. I used the one called Sidewalk. Again, it's free and it suits our purpose just fine.

Save the font in the folder we just created. (For PC users Unzip it to C:\Windows\Fonts. For Mac users: "I'm so jelous of you! I wan't to have Mac too!! [but can't afford]" OK. For Mac users, put the font wherever you usually put the font. Shouldn't be too difficult on Mac.

3. And finally, the brush, I got mine Floral shaped brushes from Graphics&Illustrations again. Download it to C:\Program Files\Adobe\Adobe Photoshop CS3\Presets\Brushes

Done? Great! Now your ready to start Photoshop!

OK, guys! Now's the time to rock! Start your Photoshop CS3 application press F5 and do exactly as it's shown on the video below.

OK. What I'd like to do here is to create a Photoshop File with dimensions 850px × 200px. Why? Because I intend to take part in the smashingmagazine

In the following video, we are opening the background and dragging+dropping it to our new image. I am then resizing it by 50% (Free Transform tool, not visible in this video) and then we are adjusting contrast using Levels feature of Photoshop.

To tell you the truth, I am not quite happy the way background looks like at this stage. It needs a little bit of fine-tuninig. So, I'm gonna copy the background layer, select the upper copy, add Graphic pen filter to it and apply "Overlay" to it.

Then, we're gonna add text and brushes and - volia! Our super-dooper grunge graphic for Blog is done!

Here is the video on how I did it! Enjoy!

Important: Brushes have to be added on a new layer!

OK. So, we have completed the image at this stage. Now it needs to be saved for web. This means that it needs to be optimized so that it's not too big for loading. This one is in .jpg but we could have saved it in .png too. That would probably be even better, but I will leave that part to you to test and see the results.

Watch the video...

And that's it.I hope you enjoyed the process. It was fun for me. I hope you leardned something (and you probably did if you are a absolute photoshop beginner). Please leave comments and ask for clarification if you need some.

Cheers!