WHAT WE’RE CREATING:

Today you’ll learn how to create a charming Christmas cover photo for your Facebook page. This is a great way to get in the festive spirit and learn some great design techniques along the way.

As well as layering up a custom background design, you’ll learn how to create some glowing Christmas text.

We also provide the full size cover image so that you can use it on your own Facebook page if you wish!

To help us, we’ll be using some of the beautiful backgrounds and digital papers from this week’s current deal:

900 Web & Print Ready Backgrounds and Digital Papers from Maishop Just $19

Let’s get started!

Christmas Facebook Cover Photo Tutorial

Step 1:

Start by creating a new document (851px X 315px), which is the standard size for Facebook cover photos. Also be sure to set it to 300 DPI resolution.

Fill your background layer with #ac0101.

Christmas Facebook Cover Photo Tutorial

Now we need to identify where the profile photo will sit, so that we can design around this area.

Create canvas guides at:

Vertical: 123px, 192px
Horizontal: 210px

Then use the rounded rectangle shape tool (radius: 5px) and create a shape to mark where your profile picture will sit. Very importantly, you should keep this shape layer as your top layer throughout creating this cover photo:

Christmas Facebook Cover Photo Tutorial

Step 2:

Create a new layer called ‘highlight’.

Use a very large, soft white paintbrush and mark a spot in the top-center of your canvas.

Christmas Facebook Cover Photo Tutorial

Now change this layer’s blend mode to ‘overlay’ and reduce it’s opacity to 70%. This will give your background a subtle highlight effect:

Christmas Facebook Cover Photo Tutorial

Step 3:

Now drag one of the backgrounds from this week’s deal into your canvas. In this tutorial I’ll be using a variety of backgrounds from the ‘Christmas’ backgrounds pack, which contains some really beautiful designs.

Click here to preview all 900 backgrounds in our current deal with Maishop. You can grab this huge background collection for 93% off, including an awesome bonus of 50 tileable vector patterns.

Start with this background of a lovely snowflake pattern. By dragging and ‘placing’ the image into your main canvas, it will be imported as a smart object, and you’ll be able to resize it at any stage without any loss of quality.

Christmas Facebook Cover Photo Tutorial

Change this layer’s blend mode to ‘multiply’ to give a nice background pattern effect:

Christmas Facebook Cover Photo Tutorial

Step 4:

Drag in another digital paper again from our Christmas backgrounds set.

Christmas Facebook Cover Photo Tutorial

Now apply a layer mask this this layer. Drag down a linear gradient (black to white) in order to mask off the top of this new background, exposing the underlying design.

Christmas Facebook Cover Photo Tutorial

Finally, reduce this layer’s opacity to 30% and it’s blend mode to ‘multiply’.

Christmas Facebook Cover Photo Tutorial

Step 5:

Drag in another background from the Christmas set and position it like so:

Christmas Facebook Cover Photo Tutorial

Now change it’s blend mode to ‘multiply’ and reduce it’s opacity to 15%.

Christmas Facebook Cover Photo Tutorial

Step 6:

Click here to download the awesome free font Zapfino.

Now type out the words ‘Merry Christmas’ (or any greeting of your choice) in the center of your canvas. Use whatever text color you like.

Christmas Facebook Cover Photo Tutorial

Now apply some blending options to your text layer to give a nice golden text effect:

Bevel and Emboss:

Style: Inner Bevel
Technique: Smooth
Depth: 100%
Direction: Up
Size: 5px
Soften: 0px
Angle: 105 degrees
Altitude: 30 degrees
Highlight opacity: 20%
Shadow opacity: 20%

Gradient Overlay:

Blend Mode: Normal
Opacity: 100%
Gradient: ffb534, ff921d, ffe71d, ffde42
Style: Linear
Angle: 90 degrees

Outer Glow:

Blend Mode: Overlay
Opacity: 100%
Color: ffffbe
Spread: 0%
Size: 59px

Drop Shadow:

Blend Mode: Multiple
Color: 000000
Angle: 105 degrees
Distance: 1px
Spread: 0%
Size: 3px

Christmas Facebook Cover Photo Tutorial

Step 7:

Create a new layer called ‘text highlights’.

Use a small, soft white paintbrush to paint light spots over key areas of your Christmas lettering:

Christmas Facebook Cover Photo Tutorial

Now change this layer’s blend mode to ‘overlay’ and reduce it’s opacity to 60%:

Christmas Facebook Cover Photo Tutorial

Step 8:

Now use the pen tool to create a snow drift at the bottom of your canvas. Fill it with white, and then create a slightly darker gray area for a shadow effect:

Christmas Facebook Cover Photo Tutorial

Now make your profile picture shape layer visible again, and on a new layer create a smaller snow drift to sit on top of it:

Christmas Facebook Cover Photo Tutorial

Step 9:

It’s time to create a cool custom Christmas ball decoration!

Start by creating a new layer called ‘Christmas ball’.

Your elliptical shape tool to create a perfect circle, filled with any color:

Christmas Facebook Cover Photo Tutorial

Now apply the following blending options:

Gradient Overlay:

Blend Mode: Normal
Opacity: 100%
Gradient: f6e253, fead27, cd6906
Style: Radial

Drop Shadow:

Blend Mode: Multiply
Color: 000000
Opacity: 19%
Angle: 120
Distance: 5px
Spread: 0%
Size: 5px

Christmas Facebook Cover Photo Tutorial

Now option+click on your Christmas ball layer in your layer’s palette, in order to select the Christmas ball shape.

With your selection active, create a new layer, and set this layer’s blend mode to ‘overlay’

Then use soft white and black paintbrushes to paint in shadows/highlights to give the ball more shape:

Christmas Facebook Cover Photo Tutorial

Step 10:

Finally, use your shape and line tools to create a small hook and thread hanging the Christmas ball from one of your letters.

Christmas Facebook Cover Photo Tutorial

AND WE’RE DONE

You can view your final outcome below. We hope that you enjoyed this tutorial and would love to hear your feedback on the techniques and outcome.

If you’re on the fence about grabbing our current deal then please remember it ends in just a few days time. This is your chance to own 900 beautiful backgrounds and digital papers (plus 50 tileable, vector patterns) for just $19 (93% off). This bundle has a ton of variety and is sure to suit any project you’re working on.

Click here to preview all the backgrounds, digital papers and patterns included in this deal.

You can click the image below to download the full sized version to use on your own Facebook page.