In today’s quick tip tutorial, I will show you how to create elegant Christmas card for your friends using Adobe Photoshop CS6 techniques. Layered PSD file included. Let’s get started!

Final Image Preview

Start working by creating a new document (Ctrl+N) in Adobe Photoshop CS6 with the size 1000px by 1000px (RGB color mode) at a resolution of 72 pixels/inch.
Click on Add a layer style icon from bottom part of the Layers panel and select Gradient Overlay.

Click in the color bar to open the Gradient Editor and set the color stops as shown. Click OK to close the Gradient Editor dialog box.

We’ve got the next background:

Select now the Ellipse Tool (U) and draw a small circle of white color.

We’ve got the next result:

Set Fill to 28% for the circle’s layer.

Now we’ll make many copies of the last made circle’s layer and select the Free Transform (Ctrl+T) command to change the copies’ sizes placing them as below it is represented:

Using the same tool, we may insert three more circles with the next indicated Fill values:

Add two more small circles, change the Fill value and Blending Mode on an earlier made circle:

Combine in a group all the layers containing the circles (press CTRL button to select the necessary layers and hold on the left mouse’s button while dragging the selected layers on Create a new group icon from bottom part of the Layers panel).
Set Fill to 50% for the new group we’ve got.

Let’s make a copy now of the new group and rasterize out the copy (in this case select the group in Layers panel and press CTRL+E to Merge Down). Apply on the rasterized layer the next filter: Filter > Blur > Gaussian blur:

We’ve got the next result:

Select again the Ellipse Tool (U) to continue drawing the circles of different colors and different Fill value, trying to get similarity with the next demonstrated picture:

Create a new layer and choose the Soft Round brush.

Use this brush to paint above the circles’ surface. The brush’s color is #FFE8A3, on the bottom (brush Opacity – 60%), on the top (brush Opacity – 30%)

Take the Ellipse Tool (U) to represent Christmas ball, draw the next circle as shown:

We’ve got the next result:

Click on Add a layer style icon from bottom part of the Layers panel and select Gradient Overlay.

Click in the color bar to open the Gradient Editor and set the color stops as shown. Click OK to close the Gradient Editor dialog box.

Add Drop Shadow:

We’ve got the next ball:

Now we have to represent the ball’s support element, applying the Rectangle Tool (U) draw the next rectangle. Place the layer under the ball’s one.

Click on Add a layer style icon from bottom part of the Layers panel and select Gradient Overlay.

Click in the color bar to open the Gradient Editor and set the color stops as shown. Click OK to close the Gradient Editor dialog box.

We’ve got the next result: