Leopard's Aurora Borealis wallpaper in GIMP
Finally Apple will release their new OS called Leopard. One of the things I like the most with Apple, and probably everybody loves too, is that they always release tons of beautiful stuff. From the package box to the t-shirt. Yeah there is a very cool t-shirt as well. And now it’s not different. I loved the space feeling of the new wallpaper with that sort of aurora borealis effect.
Besides that, this week the new version of GIMP was released. The 2.4 version has a renewed interface, with new icons, and much more stable, at least running on my mac it has not crashed yet.
Anyways, what I want to show on this tutorial is how to create that Aurora Borealis effect using the new GIMP. Basically I used the Leopard’s wallpaper as my reference. I have to say it was easier than I thought.
Step 1
Open GIMP 2.4 and if you don’t have it, download it and give it a try.
Create a new document, in my case I used 1600x1200, and using the Bucket Fill Tool (Shit+B), fill the background layer with a very dark purple.
Step 2
Using the Free Selection Tool (F), draw a shape like the one I did. That will be the source of our light, so the position here is very important. Try to place it more at the bottom of the image. After that, fill it with white. Tip you can add a blur or a feather to the selection.
Step 3
Go to Filters>Render>Clouds>Difference Clouds and apply the filter. Select Randomize, Turbulent and Tileable.
Step 4
Go to Filters>Blur>Motion Blur and change the settings to: Blur Type ZOOM and the length to the maximum. It will take a little bit to generate the effect.
This will generate that light burst.
Step 5
After that go to Colors>Colorize. Now we will add colors to our light. Change the hue, saturation and lightness settings until you get a sort of dark pink.
Step 6
Now lets just duplicate layers, scale and rotate them. The shape you use will define how many times you will have to do that. In my case I had to duplicate and rotate twice. Besides that, I duplicated each layer once to make the light stronger with the Blending mode.
I have in my file 6 layers and the blending mode for each in order is: Screen, Hard light, Normal, Normal, Screen, and Screen.
You can use the erase to correct some issues with the layers.
Step 7
Here I changed the color of the second layer to a red using the Colorize again.
Step 8
Duplicate one layer, and using the Colorize again, lets create the blue light. As in the step 4, just change the hue, saturation and lightness until you get a blue color. Don’t worry if the color is not strong enough, we will duplicate the layer to make it stronger. For the blue light I duplicated the layer twice, so I have 3 layers for that light. The order of blending options is Normal, Dodge, Dodge.
Step 9
Now lets add the stars. Create 2 new layers and fill them with black. One will be for the small stars; the other for the big ones. Change their blending mode to Dodge. Set white for the foreground color and select the Paintbrush Tool (P).
When you select the Paintbrush the Tool Options will open. There you will change the parameters. Specially the Apply Jitter. The image below shows the values for the big and small stars.
Final Result
I know that it does not look exactly as the Apple's wallpaper, but it's pretty close. However the most important thing here is that the new GIMP is an excellent tool, we can create all sorts of effects with it and it's free. The only thing that bothers me is that it still needs the X11 to run on my mac.
Click on the Image to to see it bigger.
Download the GIMP file here
About author
My name is Fabio Sasso, I'm a graphic/web designer from Porto Alegre, Brazil and I'm the founder of Abduzeedo. I hope we can share lots of information, tips, and ideas through abduzeedo.
I'm Brazilian :D.
Just saying since I read your from Brazil.
I think you forgot to mention to add a new layer, THEN make the selection. Because I saw on your screenshot that you had another layer with the selection, and you didn't tell us to.
zip is corrupted lol.
sigh i really need that image
anyway to replace it?
whoa! very cool!
i tried to do this in Ps and its neat! not so close with the outcome using gimp but still very cool!
nice!
Could you please assist me in locating the "shit" key on my keyboard. Thanks.
Just kidding, great tutorial.
really nice job.
»… the Bucket Fill Tool (Shit+B)«
I've been searching the Shit-key for some time, but somehow can't manage to find it. ;)
Nice tutorial, btw.
You need to unclick the selection, by double clicking outside the freehand selection. Then blur
After I do step four the stuff works but when I use the blur outward, the rays stays within of the shape. please help
You have on image Gimp 4.2, but newest version is 2.4.5, isn´t it? By the way nice tutorial :)
Thank you for this comment, This comment is about how to create wallpapers in Leopard os. This is very useful to all. Now I am having nice information about Free Registry scan for systems, This is very good for cleaning registry.
Great. Simply great.
thanks man. I was searching for a nice background for the gimp installer dmg. now I can do it by myself. :D
Nice tutorial. I'm getting a mac soon so I can do all my Photoshop work on it
Great tutorials, might of mentioned the layer thing a bit more early on, and the background/colors could be anythings you want, not just leopard style. :)
Guys, there are a couple of steps missing here. Before you do the freehand selection, create a new layer. Also, when you do the motion blur, set the zoom center to about 80-90% of the way down your image. So, for 1024x768 images, set the Y to 700.
Cool! Slightly modified to create a "Stargate" effect.
I can't get the blending mode up
my motion blur appears upside down
I'm having the same problem as tiny tim. My step 4 doesn't get the same effect as yours.
do you have a printable version? i think it would be easyier for me to follow that way
Sorry for taking so long, but that's true, you have to deselect everything... I think that will fix the problem....
Thanks for the comments.
You have to go Select>Select None Before you motion blur.
I still cant get the rays to come outside the selection, I have tried a dozen times...
Take a look at meetthegimp.org It's a video podcast that explains different features about GIMP.
This is wonderful, just one problem my 'flair' (step 4) always goes down, not up like yours. How might I fix this?
I got a new windows computer several days ago, yet microsoft don't make really good wallpapers so i needed one.
I'm currently making myself a wallpaper from this tuorial so thanks =)
stunning pic! really nice job.
very nice!
I learned a lot from here!!
thanks so much!
can this effect be done in photoshop too?
Totally amazing. Thank you very much for this tutorial. A simple approach yet very magnificent output. You are such an inspiration.
Totally amazing. Thank you so very much for this tutorial. I've learned a lot with your simple approach yet magnificent output. You are such an inspiration.
Nice tutorial. But be warned the GIMP 2.4-rc3 (last binary available for OS X) is not compatible with Leopard. It will run but the it will crash without a warning and your image will be lost.
nice work mate!
"I am also having problems after applying the blur outward. Everything just stays inside the shape." See if there's no selection, probably that's the problem.. Thanks for all comments
I am also having problems after applying the blur outward. Everything just stays inside the shape.
Any idea's?
After I do step four the stuff works but when I use the blur outward, the rays stays within of the shape. please help
is that a joke or a mistake in the final result?
do you really have "gimp 4.2"?
Nice! Never seen this before.
Wow its Beautiful Can You Use other colors to??
Very nice tutorial, thanks!
I'm still waiting for Leopard, it's in town since around 30 hours now (according to the delivery status) but UPS is slow. :-(
So in the meantime, I can create a Leopardy Desktop Background :-)
I've been visiting your blog for a couple of weeks now and really enjoying it!
Great tutorial! :)
Thanks for the comment Simon, I will have to wait 30+ days to get mine. Yeah this is Brazil... Until there... I will keep using its wallpaper ;)
Wow I'm so excited about Leopard, I'm buying it tomorrow morning!
Woo!
Thanks for the tut Fabio ;)
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