After making several different types of these wallpapers for friends and co-workers, I have decided to post a blog on how to make your own cool gas cloud type wallpaper. To do this you will need Photoshop or similar image manipulation software.

First, create a new file that is the same size as your desktop and set your background color, I always use black because it usually accents the vapor effect the best. Then select your brush tool and set the weight to some where between 3-5px. Make some colored line, note that you should put every line on it's own layer.

Next take your smudge tool and push the pixels in your line around. To get a good smear you should start pulling half-way through the line, to get an exaggerated pull that won't show up as much start at one side of the line and pull all the way through.

Finally when you have pulled your colored pixels around to your satisfaction, go to your Layer Properties panel and add a drop shadow. Set the Blend Mode to normal, and get your best sample of the color of the line, you can also use a similar color to get some other effects. Adjust your angle, then play around with your distance, size, and spread to get a good cloud floating off of your line.

You may want to tweak you lines after you have added your drop shadow cloud effect. I recommend save you image as a .jpg, this way you get a small file size and a good color transition. In the end this is how our example turned out.

If you want to download some neat wallpapers I have made visit my art section and feel free to download as much as you want ^_^!