Black and White blog theme

Hello guys. My name is Ela and in today’s Photoshop tutorial I will guide through the creation of a nice black and white grunge blog theme.

It is a simple and clean blog layout, generic enough to be used for any kind of topic.

This tutorial covers basic Photoshop tools and effects.

Most important, you will learn how to use brushes in different ways, for example the most simple way to create a dashed line easily, how to turn a colorful image into a black&white one, and how to create a pattern.

Preview of final result :

As a first step, you need to create a new 1050px X 1500px Photoshop document.

Fill it in with #e5e5e5.

Name this layer “Background”.

Give suggestive names to all of the layer we’re going to create because there are several and we always want to know what’s in there.

Create a new layer for the upper noisy frame:

So make a selection accordingly, crossing the entire document vertically, and fil it in with #959595.

Go to Filter->Noise -> Add Noise and apply the following settings:

Goto Filter->Blur->Gaussian Blur and apply a 0.5 radius blur filter.

Open the Blending Options panel and apply a “Drop Shadow” using the following settings to your “frame” layer:

Create a new layer and name it “upper dashed line” or something similar.

We need to create the line marked with red in the following printscreen:

We need a custom brush for this so open up a new 20px X 20 px new file. Grab a small rectangle brush, set the foreground color to plain black and draw this.

Goto  Edit->Define Brush Preset, write a name a hit Ok.

Close the file without saving it.

Now go back to our former document.

Choose your new created brush. It should be at the end of the list.

Press F5 and set it as shown:

Set the size to 10px. Set the foreground color to #d9d9d9.

Using the Pen Tool draw a straight line, right where you need the dashed line.

Right click on your path and choose Stroke path.

Make sure you don’t have “Simulate Pressure” checked. Choose “Brush” from the drop-down menu and hit Ok.

Voila! You’re upper part is almost ready.

All you have to do now is add the text and the lower orange lines:

On the next step, we will create the image gallery:

Create a new layer and name it … “image gallery background” for example.

Set the foreground color to #c5c4c0.

Create this shape using the Pen Tool:

(I make a paranthese here to explain the more empirical method: just create the rectangle and afterwards using a big hard round brush create the two rounded sided parts.Hold down Shift to make sure you’re drawing both in a straight line).

We need to apply a pattern which we need to create ourselves.

Create a new 20px X 20px document.

Using a dark grey, draw an x from corner to corner in that document and define it as pattern. Edit->Define pattern.

Close the file without saving.

Go back to our file and open the “Blending Options” panel for our shape.

Apply these settings:

Your canvas should now look like this:

Using the “Arrow9” Shape Tool and #e1e1e1 as foreground color, draw the following arrows.(delete the tail after drawing.)

Set the foreground color to #e5e5e5. Create a new layer, and with Rectangle Tool (U) Draw the following shape:

Add the following layer styles:

In the next step, a dashed line surrounding this last layer will be created.

Use same technique as described above.

Use #a9a9a9 as foreground color.

Now pick a nice picture and insert it into your document.

Rotate it to ~20^o  and add a 3px outside “Stroke” using #ebebeb as color.

Also apply an “Inner Shadow” using these settings:

To transform your colorful image into a “Black&White” one, just go to Image -> Adjustments -> Black & White and hit “Ok”.

You can also use the shortcut for this command, which is Ctrl + Alt + Shift + B.

Add a small rectangle – in a separate layer – covering the part of your picture frame.

Its color has to be #606060.

Set the opacity to 43% and add some text:

At the next step, we need to add the number of each image so you can go manually through the whole slide.

For this gallery I’ve drawn these small cute bubbles:

In separate layers, using the “Elipse Tool” or a simple hard round brush.

For all three, open the “Blending Mode” panel and set a 2px inside “Stroke” effect using #5f5f5f.

Use for the grey ones a linear gradient:

For the orange one use a radial gradient:

Add numbers:

Create a new layer and put it below the “image gallery background” layer.

Draw a #e5e5e5 rectangle as shown in a picture below and add a “Drop Shadow” filter with Opacity set to 15%, Distance to 0px and Size to 24px.

Add some text and some images as latest posts:

Separate the blog part of the Archive part through 2 dashed lines. A dark grey one and a white one, to give it an embedded line feel:

Add some social icons. You can put some colored ones and press CTRL+SHIFT+ALT+B to turn each into B&W.

Add text as archive, and also some “Advertise here” boxes:

Right below, in a #f1f1f1 rectangle write down a few words about yourself and also insert a pictures.

I dared to put a colored one.

Duplicate the upper frame to use also as footer.

Add some text and your blog theme is finished.

Final result:

If you’ve enjoyed this tutorial don’t forget to subscribe, like us on Facebook , follows us on Twitter or distribute it using the sided button. Tons of things to do ha? Easier to say you didn’t like it.

Kiddin..it’s just that this is a simple thing to do and it will keep this blog running.

Thanks for reading my blog.

Ela. xx