Assumed knowledge: Basic knowledge of the Photoshop interface and how to create simple effects.
Concepts covered: Creating a gradient background and using light sources.Start up Photoshop and create a picture with the size that suits your needs. Make sure that the default windows are loaded up in Photoshop. You?’ll need the layers window at the least. I just chose a 400 by 400 square. Once your done setting up your work environment. Right click on the background layer and duplicate it.

This is so we can add blending effects to the layer. Delete the locked background layer. Next we need to add a gradient overlay to our layer. You can do this by right clicking on the layer and selecting blending options then select Gradient Overlay.

You can edit the options for your gradient in this menu. If you click on the sample gradient you can change the colours for your gradient. You can also add extra ink plots for your gradient. The other options are pretty standard. You can change them yourself to edit your gradient so that it?’s the way that you want.

One you have a perfect gradient then with your layer selected click on the little arrow and select flatten image. This will turn it into a flattened bitmap.

To add a bit of light to the background select Filter>>Render>>Lighting Effects
Then select the lighting that you want to accommodate your picture. Once again you can mess with the options as much as you want to get the right lighting.

Now your backdrop is complete. You can add effects to it if you want to, perhaps some brushes to give the picture some substance. I used the same technique to create the wallpaper Prime Destination(link goes here). This is the backdrop that I created: