First decide on the main theme of your flyer and pic a picture that will do the trick. It can be a beach if its a summer party, a swimming pool, a snowed-up mountain, well you get the idea. We will use a city picture for an urban themed flyer.

Start a new project File->New , and set the frame of your flyer to the standard paper size for flyers. Thats 8.5inches in width and 11 inches in height.

Next grab your Paint Bucket Tool and choose black color as background for your new project and create a new layer.

Open your main theme picture if you dont have it open already and by using the Move Tool drug the image into your black flyer.

You will probably notice that the picture does not precisely fit in the flyer’s canvas. To solve this we will resize the image to fit exactly into the canvas. Hit CTRL+T (Command on Mac) or Edit->Free Transform to dynamically resize the image by good ol’ clicking and dragging.

Next rearrange your layers by pulling Layer 1 over Layer 2 on your Layers window.
Now we will blend the two layers by using the Gradient Tool.

First click on the Rectangular Marquee Tool and select the area around the image. Once done choose the Gradient Tool and make sure the colors sequence is from black to white. Hold down Shift and Click and Drag a line from the centre of your canvas half way up creating a straight line.

Once you are happy with the result, go to your layers window and click on the Layer Blending Mode and from the drop down menu choose Multiply and once done merge the two layers (the image and the canvas) into one by hitting Ctrl+E , alternatively link the two layers by clicking on the tick box next to the eye icon of your layers this will bring up a chain do this on both layer and finally click on Layers menu and Merge. This will create a beautiful smooth effect between the two layers.

And you are almost done. What is left is the message of the flyer for which we will use the Type Tool.

The possibilities here are truly endless you may want to use a standard Fonts Format or go for something more extravagant in which case you can consult one of our other tutorials on, 3D typography, Fire text or Burning Neon Effect. The idea is to use the black area of your canvas for your message! So go on be creative and have a great party!

We will use a rather plain photograph that will make the end result even more noticeable.

Next we will start creating a series of layers that will give us the lomo effect. First layer we will need is an Adjustment layer and more specifically a Curves one. Just click on layers and on the drop down menu follow Adjustment->Curves as shown below.

The Curves layer will bring forward the Curves dialogue window, where you can play around with the colors axes. We will work with the input and the output of the RGB, the Green and the Blue colors. This will adjust the density of the chosen colors and will start our picture resembling a lomo effect.

On the RGB and Green we will increase the input and reduce the output and we will do the opposite with the Blue. The images below will give you a good idea of how you want to adjust the axes of the Curves layer.

You can already start noticing the retro-ish impact on your photograph. We will continue our tutorial with another layer. This time we will use a Gradient map layer. The way to do this is the same, Layers and Gradient Map, shown below for your convenience.

Once done so, the Gradient Map dialogue box will be brought forward, which is preset in Black and White and which is exactly how we want it to be. Next click on the layers tab and set the lighting mood to Overlay, thats the first drop down menu on top and then lower the opacity, do this to your liking. We will use a 40% opacity in this case but this is more of a rule of thumb case.

If you want to perfect your lomo photo you can give it a tunnel vision effect. For this we will need another layer. This layer needs to have Black as a foreground color which we will then feather to give us the tunnel effect.
To do this create a new layer and having chosen Black then choose Edit and Fill from your top navigation bar.
This will bring up the Fill dialogue box. Hit OK.

Next choose your Rectangular Marquee Tool and draw a Rectangle in your black layer, not too large, it has to big a bit larger than the main object of your picture.

Once you are done drawing your rectangle, reach for your Feather tool. You will find that if you click: Edit->Modify->Feather. This will bring up the Feather tool dialogue box. Next we will set the Radius, this has to be related to the size of your picture, play around with the radius to see what works best for you. We used a radius of 50 pixels. This will black-out the peripheral area of the picture and leave the main object into focus with a black halo effect, which will be the tunnel vision. If this sounds too complex, dont worry, it is not. Just experiment with the radius and once you get it right you will know it.

Hit OK. If the picture comes up too blackened, simply reduce the Opacity a bit.
The result is an astonishing lomo effect!

Once you have Ellipse tool selected choose a neutral grey colour from your colour palette, like 50% grey, and simply draw your droplet. You can make the shape of your drop more elliptical using the Direct Selection Tool and the Pen tool or just leave it round to keep things simple.

We need next to start applying some layer styles. For this we will change the blend mode to Overlay.

Bring up your Layers Styles dialogue box by double clicking on the blank area of your layer.

We will start from the top and add some layer styles:
1. Drop Shadow, set the opacity to 15% and the angle to 90 degrees and choose the second from top left contour option.
2. Inner Shadow, and again opacity 15% angle 90 degrees.
3. Inner Glow, blend mode multiply and colour to black the opacity to 20%.
4. Bevel and emboss, style inner bevel, depth 100%, angle 90 degrees and altitude to 70. The highlight mode normal with white colour increase the opacity to 100% and shadow mode to overlay with white colour and 90% and click OK.

The result of these adjustments should look like this:

The last thing we need to take care of is to distort the background image behind the droplet. To do this go select your background layer and hold down ctrl and then Filter->Distort->Ripple and adjust the settings to your liking and hit OK. Once you have your first water drop you can easily adjust the size and feel of your drops.

Click any shape you want. Make for instance a circle, remember to hold down shift to make a perfect shaped circle. You can use any colour you want for this tutorial. Once you have this, look in your layer palette, right click the image you created and select “layer transparency”. Create a new layer without deselecting, go to select -> modify -> contract -> contract by 3 pixels.

Now, in select a darker colour than the one you have for your shape (as mentioned, you can use any colour for this one). Now switch to the gradient tool and use gradient to transparent. You can either go up or down over your picture, it’s probably easier and wiser to go up. This will add the volume to the shape you created.

Once you have this, deselect (ctrl+d) - now do the same thing all over again. Right click on the first image, select layer transparency, create a new layer - put this layer on top. Then select the marquee tool, but make sure to use the elliptical marquee tool, the third option is to select “subtract from selection”. This will make sure that it’s going to subtract anything you’re going to select instead of adding it. Then go to Select -> Modify -> Contract by 5 pixels.

To make it smoother, we’ll right click on the selection, while holding the lasso tool - use feather and 10 pixels. Fill this with white (or any brighter colour from the one you chose originally), using the paint bucket as you normally would.

When we have the base for this, we’ll create a new layer - select the elliptical marquee tool again and set white as your foreground colour. Then create a circle on top of your shape. It’s easier to make a circle, but it could really be any shape - oval or so would also work in this example. As the white is the foreground colour, set foreground to transparent using the gradient tool and go from up to down over your shape.

Once we have this done, it’s more or less finished - all we have to do now is link the layer by selecting them and then select “merge linked” from the layers palette.

And that’s it really! You’ve now created a glass effect to your circle.

You can also spice this up by adding a glass reflection. You’d then duplicate the layer and flip it upside down, set the opacity to 50% or so, and then use the erase tool (again using opacity maximum 60%). That’d make the final result look something like this instead.