Hearts Valentine’s Day Card Tutorial in Photoshop

In this tutorial, we will learn how to create a simple hearts with sparkling effects valentine’s day card in Photoshop using brushes and blending options.

Tutorial Details

Program: Photoshop CS5

Estimated Completion Time: 30-35 Minutes

Tutorial Assets

The following assets were used in the creation of this tutorial.

Step 1

Create a new document with 1200px width and 1000px height. First of all, fill the background layer with # 350304 color using the ‘paint bucket tool’.

Step 2

Create a new layer now by going to Layer> New layer. Set # ffffff as your foreground color and select ‘hard round brush’. After that, go to Window> Brush presets and use the given settings.

Apply the brush as shown below.

Now set the blending mode of this layer to ‘overlay’ and reduce its opacity to 50%.

Step 3

Once again create a new layer and apply the hard round brush on it but this time set its blending mode as ‘soft light’ and reduce its opacity to 30%. This will form a nice background for your Valentine’s Day card.

Step 4

Create a new layer, select the ‘pen tool’ and click on the icon of ‘shape layer’ from the top options bar to draw the shape as shown below.

Now duplicate this shape layer twice by going to Layer> Duplicate layer. Give them different colors. We are using # fca591, # ff491f and # 561000 colors here. After that, drag the duplicated shapes downward using the ‘move tool’ to arrange them as displayed below.

Step 5

Click on the top curve layer and go to Layer> Layer style> Inner glow and use the values as displayed below.

After that, click on the middle curve layer and go to Layer> Layer style>Blending options and use the given settings.

Then click on the last curve layer and use the following blending options settings for it.

Step 6

Next, we’ll bring hearts to the canvas. Select # ff0000 color and the ‘heart shape’ brush. Now go to the ‘brush presets’ to apply the given settings for the heart brush.

Now apply the heart shape brush on a new layer as shown below.

Create a new layer and use heart brush on it as well in the same manner.

Step 7

Now we’ll give these hearts some character. Click on one of the hearts layer and go to Layer> Layer style> Blending options. Apply the settings as displayed here.

Right click on this layer and select the option of ‘copy layer style’. Then right click on the 2nd hearts layer and choose ‘paste layer style’ option to apply the same effect.

Create a new layer and place it below the hearts layer. Apply heart shape brush on it in the same way as we did before and use the drop shadow settings for it.

Step 8

Now we’ll add sparkles to the card. Create a new layer, select the ‘sparkles6’ brush, 20px size and apply it on this layer. Then go to Layer> Layer style> Outer glow and use the given values.

Create a new layer and use the same sparkles brush but with 12px size on it and paste the layer style of the larger sparkles layer on it to add outer glow.

Step 9

Select the ‘type tool’, ‘Dynalight’ font, # fca994 color and 90px size. Type in on new layers. We’ll type ‘Happy’ and ‘Valentine’s Day’ on separate layers. After that, press Ctrl+ T to activate the ‘free transform tool’ and rotate the text with its help as shown below.

Now click on one of the text layer and press the ‘create warped text’ icon at the top options bar and use the given values in the window that appears.