Lets Start by gathering the stock images, for this you have lots of web-sites, SXC.hu, istockphoto etc, you also can take a photograph of what you would like in your wallpaper.

 

In this example we got a Macbook Pro, a Canon Leghts cover, a Pencil, Post it's and a normal wooden floor. Gather what you like and try it, remember we don't want you to follow EXACT steps, we want you to be creative too.

 

Background

Start by creating your New document, choose the size of your resolution, for this one 1440x900. After that Create a New layer to place your Wooden floor, or whatever you like ex:concrete floor,water. We named this Layer Wooden Floor.

Take down the saturation just a bit.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Cutting Objects

Create a new layer and place your Canon Cover in(or what you want), after make a selection using the elipical selection tool, follow me, Hold down shift+alt and start selection from the center of the Canon Cover, It's hard to match the selection but continue holding shift+alt and now hold the space bar too, in this way you can move your selection so it fits perfectly.

In our case since the background is White and the object is Black so we can just use the magic wand tool and selection the white part.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

After you remove the white space use the settings below in the Blending Options.

 

 

 

 

 

Do the same for the Macbook pro or whatever laptop you want there... search laptops at SXC.hu or take a photo of yours and cut it up like we did the canon lens cover.
Use this settings for the Drop Shadow of the laptop.

 

 

 

 

 

Heres what we go so far.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Pencil and Post it use the settings below.

 

 

 

 

Getting the Album Covers.

Go to Amazon.com to get your covers, for example I want a Fall Out Boy cover, I do a search, click on the album I want and voila download the big cover image.

Now open your album image(open in a new document) and we will create a action for this, Open up your Actions Go to Windows - > Actions or press Alt+F9
With your album image in a new document press the new Action button (the one left to the trash as you see in the image) in the Actions Window to start a new Action.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Name this action "Sizeto200x200".

Hit Record and off we go.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Go to Image -> Image Size

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We want all our albums to be 200x200 so in the Image Size window choose a size of 200x200. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

To finish up the Action just hit the Stop Button (left of the recording button) and your action is done! Everytime you get a album from Amazon.com, simply put it in a New Document, get to the Actions Window and Hit Play on this action, this way you save your self a lot of Time.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The White BG

After you got your album in the size we want(200x200) lets move it to our Wallpaper in the works, name this layer Fall out Boy Album.

Now the White BG, select the Rectangular Marquee Tool (m) and on the top bar pick the fixed size style.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

After you have this selection fill it with White, next go to the blending options of this layer and give this values.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Merging and Aligning

So now we got 2 things, a Album Cover (200x200) and a White Square (220x200).

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Now go to the Layers Palette and put the whiteBG below the FalloutBoy Album, to align the 2 objects it's very simple, Select the 2 Layers and look to the top bar of photoshop. Hit the buttons we have highlighted in the next image, this way it will align verticly and horizontaly . 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We got our first album done! Now you can merge the 2 layers if you want (command+E or ctrl+E) but first copy the whiteBG so you can do it again and again and again with other albums.

 

 

 

 

 

 

You know the process now, you can play around, rotate and do all the albums you want.. fill up your screen with your favorite music albums

 

 

 

 

Click the image to go to the wallpaper post 

PSD File Available

You can download our .PSD file for this Tutorial here. Feel free to change it to your favorite albums.