Last updated on February 12th, 2019
Most poster designers love to create gig posters as it allows them to play with imagination and do something interesting with the design. If you know the band’s music and its inspiration then let loose your imagination and you will have a poster with full of creative elements. Often, gig posters are abstract with a lot of expressions.
In this Photoshop tutorial, you will learn how to design one such poster quickly without spending much time on it. Though gig posters are generally illustration based, you may not have the time to create a custom illustration. Therefore, we have created a photo based gig poster here. All you need to do is to get some interesting photos and textures and start poster design in some easy steps.
In the Part-1 of the tutorial, we finished importing a picture for the gig poster and then incorporating a root. Now we will give a new image to the poster with the help of the pictures of the tree, root and the birds in the sky for a desired message.
Step -1
Go to Image at the top bar to get Adjust and then Threshold menu. Here select the threshold level to decide how much darker shade of the tree you want for the poster.
Step -2
Click on Image menu on the top bar and select Adjustment and then Hue/Saturation.
Step-3
In the Hue/Saturation menu, set the parameters for Hue, Saturation and Lightness for the image.
Step-4
Now, select an image that you have saved in your computer. The image will be incorporated on the poster.
Step-5
To give the selected image its desired color, go to the Image on the top bar, select Adjustment and then go to Hue/Saturation.
Step-6
In the Hue/Saturation menu, fill your requirement for the colors you want in the image that you want to incorporate in the background of your gig poster.
Step-7
Now we get the image with right hue and saturation parameters of your choice for the poster.
Step-8
Go to Image at the top bar again, select Adjustment and then Levels.
Step-9
The Level menu helps you in removing the undesirable elements in the background image, which is of the birds here. Set the parameters in the Level menu and choose the Output Levels rightly for the background image. Here we want to remove the gray sky area and want to add some more secondary elements.
Step-10
Now, you have the birds in the image coming to the foreground and the upper tree branches falling into the backdrop.
Step -11
Working on Level 2, we have now a full image of the poster with birds coming to the foreground and the tree set in the backdrop.
Step-12
If you wish to give the birds a little lighter shade of dark color, go to Image and select Hue/Saturation.
Step-13
In the Hue/Saturation menu, select the parameters of light shades and set the Lightness for the image.
Step-14
Now, work on Layer 3 and bring the birds a little closer for the desired effect. You should place the bird image above the canvas and over the tree to give the impression that the birds are flying over the tree. To do this, rotate the bird image to adjust it on the tree. Make sure that you have set the layers of the tree and the birds on blending mode.
In the Part-3, we will complete the gig poster and show you how to incorporate more elements into the image and place them accurately for the desired impact. The final appearance of the poster will be entirely changed due to the colors and text.
