Valentine's Day is just around the corner - why not dress your Web site up with a new header. So, let's go through how to make a pretty new Valentine's Day header.

A Quick Pattern For Later

Open a new document - 5px X 5px

Zoom all the way in.

Make a new layer.

Grab the Pencil Tool and make it 1px in size and color to black.

Go diagonal from the upper left corner to the lower right corner - you should have five brush marks.

Click the eye next to the Background layer to turn it off.

Go to Edit->Define Pattern… Name it lines and click OK.

Getting Started

First off, open a new document in Photoshop. I made mine 768px X 150px.

Once it opens go ahead and make a new layer and name it bg.

The Background

First, we will setup our colors. For the Foreground color use light red and for the Background color use dark red.

Grab the Rounded Rectangle Tool (it might be under the Rectangle Tool) and draw out a rounded rectangle that fits inside our document. Make it come pretty close to each edge - if you don't get it exact we can adjust it in a minute.

Now, right-click and pick Make Selection… make sure Feather Radius is 0 and click OK.

If you need to adjust your selection go to Select->Transform Selection and you will be able to move and resize it. Once you have it where you need it press enter.

Grab the Gradient Tool (shortcut 'g') and with our rounded rectangle still selected start at the top of our document and click and pull to the bottom of our document. The lighter red should be at the top of our rectangle.

Now, double-click on the bg layer to add a Layer Style.

Add a Stroke - change the color to black and the size to 2.

Add The Lines Pattern

Duplicate the bg layer and name the new layer lines.

Double click on the lines layer and turn off the stroke by unchecking it.

Left-click on the little image beside the lines layer to make it our selection.

Go to Edit->Fill… change Use: to Pattern and for Custom Pattern: pick our lines pattern we made earlier. Click OK.

Set the Opacity to 30%.

Now, we are going to add a layer mask. Click on the Layer Mask icon at the bottom of the Layers Pallet.

Grab the Gradient tool - set the Foreground Color to black and the Background Color to 35% gray. Start in the bottom left corner and drag up to the upper right corner. And we are done with that part.

Note: If you still have the rounded rectangle area selected you can ctrl+d to deselect it.

Let's Add Some Text

Grab the Text Tool (shortcut 't') - Change the Options to Monotype Corsiva at 48pt (or whatever text style you want)

Type out Happy and exit the Text Tool.

Then type out Valentine's Day below it.

I tilted mine up a little ctrl+t to transform the text.

Add a stroke to each layer by double-clicking on it and selecting stroke - change the color to black and the size to 1.

Duplicate the Happy and Valentine's Day text layers.

Select both of the layers by holding down the shift key and clicking on the one that is not highlighted.

Right-click on either layer and select Rasterize Type.

Right-click again and select Merge Layers - rename the merged layer to reflection.

Now, we need to flip the reflection layer over. Go to Edit->Transform->Flip Vertically.

With the Move Tool (shortcut 'v') hold down shift and move the reflection text down.

Ctrl+t and move and rotate the text to line up correctly.

Add a Layer Mask to the reflection layer. Use the Gradient Tool (the colors should be the same as the last layer mask we made) and use the image as a guide to make the gradient.

A Heart

Create a new layer and name it heart.

Use the Custom Shape Tool (under the rounded rectangle we used earlier).

Change Shape: to one of the Hearts.

Drag out a heart shape to your liking.

Click on the Paths tab in the Layers Pallet.

Right-click on Work Path and select Make Selection… click OK.

Fill it with a red color or a gradient - it's up to you.

Double-click on the heart layer and add a stroke - color black size 1.

While we are in the Layer Style options. Give the heart a Bevel and Emboss - change the Style: to Inner Bevel the Technique: to Smooth and change Soften: to 10 now click OK.

There you have a nice header for Valentine's Day.

Extra

Add a ribbon look to the header.

Make a new layer above the lines layer - name it ribbonLong.

Take the Rectangle Marque (shortcut 'm') and drag out a rectangle the width of the image in the center make it about 50px or so tall.

Fill it with a dark red and give it a stroke color black size 2.

Make a new layer name it ribbonTall. Do the same thing only make this rectangle go up and down at the center of the image. Give it a fill of dark red and the same stroke.

Now, ctrl+click on the little image beside the bg layer.

ctrl+shift+i to invert the selection.

Click on the ribbonLong and hit the delete key then click on ribbonTall and do the same.

Grab the Burn Tool - make the brush size about 50px and the Exposure: 35%.

Burn along all the edges of each rectangle - a little extra at the ends.

Popularity: 7% [?]