It’s been a while since I’ve posted any free media on my site, so I figured with Easter coming up this would be a good time.  This is a welcome slide and background that I created last year for our Easter services.  I’ll be making a new set of slides for this year’s services, but will probably have those out too late for anyone to use this year.

Again, feel free to download and use these, all I ask in return is that you leave a comment here with your name and where/how you plan to use these.

You can also search “free worship backgrounds” on this blog to find all the other media I’ve given away.

	Download here: [download id=”13″ #nohits]
	Download here: [download id=”11″ #nohits]
	Download here: [download id=”12″ #nohits]

Since the number one reason people visit my blog is for free worship backgrounds, I thought I’d offer a simple step by step guide to how I made my latest background.  This should show you how you can take a few freely available resources and turn it in to something that can work as a worship background.

This is the background I’m going to create.  You can download it here: [download id=”10″ #nohits]

1. Find Inspiration

The first step is to come up with a concept or idea for your background.   I like to look through stock photography sites like http://www.sxc.hu.  Or you can even take a look at what people have made over at www.worshiphousemedia.com (Be warned, you may just decide to purchase a background for a couple bucks rather then make it yourself if you come across one you really like!)  I also like to visit sites like cgtextures.com to find interesting textures.

I found the following image at cgtextures.com and it became my source of inspiration for this background.

I knew that it wouldn’t suffice on it’s own, so I also found this bare cement texture to go along with it.

2. Create the initial concept.

In Photoshop I put these together two images together and came up with this:

3. Change the color

To make the background the color you want, use Hue and Saturation to color the image.  Don’t make it too dark yet initially as we still have a ways to go.  Leave the final brightness tweaking until the end.

4. Add a little something for interest

I found this image of christmas lights on http://www.sxc.hu

Add it to the original image using a blending mode, in this case Add.  I used hue and saturation in colorize mode on this layer to make the color brownish-orange and a bit de-saturated.

5. Keep the center area clean for words.

Since this is a worship background, its important to keep the center area clear of too many distractions for the words.  Using a faded mask I removed some of the lights from the center.

6. Final color correction

Finally I added a vignette to darken the edges and used a curves adjustment to create the final look of the image.

Thats it!  Just a few simple steps and you have something that could be used as a worship background.