Create a mixtape cover in Photoshop

How to create a basic mix-tape cover in Photoshop.

Hello people! Today I will be showing how to create a very basic but eye catching mix tape cover in Photoshop. We will be using very basic image manipulation and selection techniques in Photoshop.

This is what we will be creating today.

Open up Photoshop and let’s begin.

Step1: Create a new document with a size of (400×400) and fill it with black (#000000).

Create a new document with a size of (400×400).

Step 2: Hit (P) on your keyboard to bring up the pen tool and draw a path similar to mine. Hit Ctrl+H to hide our path.

Draw a path using the pen tool.

Step 3: Open up any image u want to use for this tutorial. And drag it into your mix tape document.

Select your image layer, right click and make your path into a selection.

Now hit Ctril+Shit+I and hit backspace. What we have done is inversed the first selection.

Basically we told Photoshop to delete any thing outside the first selection we made.

Drag your picture into your mix tape document.

Make your path into a selection.

Hit Ctril+Shit+I (Inverse Selection).

Hit backspace to delete.

Hit Crtl+D to deselect.

Step 4: Now let’s add some Gradient Map to our image.

Select your picture layer, hold Ctrl+Click on it thumbnail to make a selection.

Go to Image>Adjustment>Gradient Map.

Use a Black to White Gradient.

Your image turns to a nice black and white colour when you apply the gradient map.

Ctrl+click on it thumbnail to make a selection.

Go to Image>Adjustment>Gradient Map.

Select a black to white Gradient.

Nice black and white image.

Now I made a selection of the layer, because I wanted the gradient map to affect the image only.

Step 5: Now let’s add some Hue and Saturation to our image.

Again hold Ctrl+Click on the image thumb nail to make a selection.

Hit Ctrl+U for the Hue and Saturation menu.

Select colorize and put in 90 for saturation. This gives it a nice red interesting colour.

Ctrl+click on the image thumbnail to make a selection again.

Select colorize and put in 90 for saturation.

Nice red interesting colour.

Step 6: Let’s add some text to it.

Let’s use a big bold font. I am using a typeface called Ryno Slab.

Using Ryno Slab make a text of size 9px.

Make a text of size 9px.

Add more text to make it look more interesting, eye catching and attractive.

To make the text look more interesting I downloaded images from istockphoto.com.

Using the inverse selection, gradient map and hue and saturation techniques we used early I made the font look more interesting.

And we are done. Easy simple steps to creating a nice eye-catching mix tape cover.

Here are some of the final results I had using Photoshop shapes.

Hope this tutorial helped you learn some new techniques.

Links to the images I used.

http://www.istockphoto.com/stock-photo-8716296-gun-and-bullets.php?st=b02b2e2

http://www.istockphoto.com/stock-photo-8936224-revolver.php?st=b37127b

http://www.istockphoto.com/stock-photo-2032209-baseball-bat.php?st=dc768fa