Harry Potter Wallpaper

First, go read 'making your own Harry Potter Icon' to master some of the basics of image manipulation, then come back.

Back? Okay. I'm using Adobe's PhotoDeluxe for this Harry Potter wallpaper demonstration, but any half-way decent image manipulation package will work. You need to be able to layer images on top of one another, operate on layers separately, and make layers semi-transparent. If your software can do that, you're good to go.

Pick Your Imagery and Theme

Here I've selected two blue-toned pictures; one of an architectural detail and one picture of Harry.

I open up a new document, sized to fit my computer screen, and drag and drop the base image into it. Resize the base image by holding down the shift key and dragging corners of the image to the corners of the document.

Now We Get Fancy

Drag and drop the second image into your new document.

Resize it the same way you resized the base image. This pic is a separate layer sitting on top of the base layer, and you can operate on the layers independently of one another.

I've selected the eraser tool (big circle in image, selected button on the tool bar) and am erasing around the Harry picture. There's no need to be too particular to all the background, since we're going to fade out this picture a bit.

Now in the upper right, I select the 'layers' tab, and with the Harry layer selected, I adjust the opacity of the Harry layer to make it as transparent as I'd like. Not shown - I also use the blur tool (the waterdroplet below the eraser on the toolbar) to fade out the edges of the Harry layer, and move Harry down to the lower left corner of the wallpaper.

Let's Add Ron Weasley

I've decided to add a pic of Ron Weasley as well, so I drag and drop Ron into a blank document, and erase around him.

I change the 'hue' of the image using the 'hue, saturation and contrast' tool from the 'image adjustments' pulldown.

Now Ron is dropped into the work in progress and resized.

I change the opacity of Ron's layer to match Harry's layer, and blur his edges as well. And there you have it.

Here's the full-sized Harry Potter wallpaper. Feel free to take it and use it, or alter it to suit yourself.