Create abstract Valentine’s Day illustration with hearts CS5

In this tutorial, I will show you how to create abstract eye catching Valentine’s Day illustration with hearts from scratch using several techniques in Adobe Photoshop CS5. Let’s get started!

Final Image Preview

Start working by creating a new document (Ctrl+N) in Adobe Photoshop CS5 with the size 

1280px by 1024px(RGB color mode) at a resolution of 72 pixels/inch. Select the background layer in Layers panel and click onAdd a layer style icon from bottom part of the Layers panel to select Gradient Overlay.

Click in the color bar to open the Gradient Editor and set the color stops as shown. Click OK to close theGradient Editor dialog box.

We’ve got the next result:

Select the Custom Shape Tool (U)in the Tools bar, in the Options bar click the Shape to open the selection menu. Find Heart at the bottom of the menu, and then double-click a shape thumbnail to select it.

Click and drag to draw the heart shape. Then apply the Convert Point Tool to make the appropriate corrections on the heart’s shape.

Set Opacity to 10% for this layer and click on Add a layer style icon from bottom part of the Layers panel to select Gradient Overlay.

Click in the color bar to open the Gradient Editor and set the color stops as shown. Click OK to close theGradient Editor dialog box.

We’ve got the next result:

Next we have to make some copies of the last made layer, increasing the Opacity value for each next copy and change the heart sizes with Free Transform (Ctrl+T) command.

Change the Opacity to 15% for the next copy:

Opacity is 10% for the next copy:

The next copy with Opacity to 10%.

Change the Opacity to 10% for the next copy:

This way we have to represent several copies as shown (Opacity - 10%).

The next copy has Opacity - 20%:

Also we have to represent several copies as shown with Opacity - 20%.

The next copy needs the Opacity - 30%:

One more heart with Opacity - 50%.

Next copy with Opacity - 70%.

In this tutorial, I will show you how to create abstract eye catching Valentine’s Day illustration with hearts from scratch using several techniques in Adobe Photoshop CS5. Let’s get started!

Final Image Preview

Start working by creating a new document (Ctrl+N) in Adobe Photoshop CS5 with the size 1280px by 1024px(RGB color mode) at a resolution of 72 pixels/inch. Select the background layer in Layers panel and click onAdd a layer style icon from bottom part of the Layers panel to select Gradient Overlay.

Click in the color bar to open the Gradient Editor and set the color stops as shown. Click OK to close theGradient Editor dialog box.

We’ve got the next result:

Select the Custom Shape Tool (U)in the Tools bar, in the Options bar click the Shape to open the selection menu. Find Heart at the bottom of the menu, and then double-click a shape thumbnail to select it.

Click and drag to draw the heart shape. Then apply the Convert Point Tool to make the appropriate corrections on the heart’s shape.

Set Opacity to 10% for this layer and click on Add a layer style icon from bottom part of the Layers panel to select Gradient Overlay.

Click in the color bar to open the Gradient Editor and set the color stops as shown. Click OK to close theGradient Editor dialog box.

We’ve got the next result:

Next we have to make some copies of the last made layer, increasing the Opacity value for each next copy and change the heart sizes with Free Transform (Ctrl+T) command.

Change the Opacity to 15% for the next copy:

Opacity is 10% for the next copy:

The next copy with Opacity to 10%.

Change the Opacity to 10% for the next copy:

This way we have to represent several copies as shown (Opacity - 10%).

The next copy has Opacity - 20%:

Also we have to represent several copies as shown with Opacity - 20%.

The next copy needs the Opacity - 30%:

One more heart with Opacity - 50%.

Next copy with Opacity - 70%.

Now we have to put on the left side a copy with Opacity - 30%:

Represent several copies with Opacity - 30%:

One more heart with Opacity - 50%.

… and then a copy with Opacity - 70%.

Now we have to represent several copies of the heart with the Opacity to 10%. Change the copies’ sizes, applying the Free Transform (Ctrl+T) command.

Let’s represent a heart’s copy with Opacity - 30%:

… and represent several copies of the heart with Opacity - 10%:

Choose the Custom Shape Tool (U) and draw a heart of white color. Incline it a little, applying the Free Transform (Ctrl+T) command. Set Fill to 50% for this layer.

Make three copies of the last made layer and select the Free Transform (Ctrl+T) command to change the copies’ sizes and place them as shown:

Using the same tools, we have to represent one more small heart:

Set Fill to 0% for this layer and click on Add a layer style icon from bottom part of the Layers panel to selectStroke.

We’ve got the next result:

Make seven copies of the last made layer and select the Free Transform (Ctrl+T) command to change the copies’ sizes, placing them as it is shown below:

Take now the Ellipse Tool (U) to draw an ellipse.

Set Fill to 0% for this layer and change the Opacity to 80%. Click on Add a layer style icon from bottom part of the Layers panel and select Stroke.

We’ve got the next result:

Make two copies of the last made layer and select the Free Transform (Ctrl+T) command to change the copies’ sizes, placing them the same way indicated next picture:

Click Create new fill or adjustment layer from bottom part of the Layers panel and select Hue/Saturation. Drag the slider to the left to decrease the Hue value.

We’ve got the next result:

Happy Valentine’s Day!