Initial setup

Start with a very, very large screen: 3000 px x 2000 px wide. Draw a rectangle as background for the whole area and fill it with a dark linear gradient layer style. Align that gradient with 45 degrees vertically (sometimes you may change that angle to 90 or 60 degrees). Since the beginning, pay special attention to colors: black and dark violet as base color. The waves colors will match a triad complementary balance with the base color, in our case, the violet-cyan-orange axis.

Warp Tool
Draw lines! Many parallel lines (horizontal or vertical, or both!). Group them, duplicate, rasterize, group, duplicate, rasterize... and finally add some blur. In this example I used white as base-color for the line themselves (white is the easiest color to balance and add glowing and other layer styles):

After you reach a wide and tall group of lines, is time for some magic: randomly distort the shape with Warp Transform Tool ( Photoshop > Edit > Transform > Warp ):

One thing you'll probably notice is the amount of confusing structural lines crossing over the shape; your first attempts are going to be almost trial-and-error, later you'll get used to this really amazing tool and will master the shapes of Chroma. Don't worry trying to find the perfect shape so early, things will fit better together when you have more than 5 separate shapes matching a pattern or a familiar shape.

When complete, remember to press the Enter key, or click on the Apply Warp button, on the top. If your computer survives the intense rendering and image post-processing... ;) your artwork should be something like this:

Remember to use the Erase Tool to remove sharpen edges and give the wave a surreal looking. Explore other combinations of shapes, lines, and textures - they'll enhance your drawings. If you did a small shape I don't recommend you size it up or even warping again. The Warp tool isn't that smart because you'll be playing with rasterized shapes - not smart objects or vector shapes. If you insist warping the same shape again, your shape is going to get some unwanted sharpen or sometimes blurry edges (depending on your case). To avoid that, I recommend you the opposite way: start with a very large area and a large shape, then size it down. Better results, easier to distort.

Glow, screen, multiply, and other layer styles

When you have the perfect shape, you will need to add its soul, I mean, the layer styles :). Again, open the layer styles panel, and mix Gradient Overlay with Outer Glowstyles, and combine them with Screen, or Overlay as layer Blending Mode. A secret hint: when glowing, try using brightly and vivid colors, such as yellow, lime, pink, or cyan, picking the color that is in complementary contrast with the dark gradient we did on the beginning. To achieve the Chroma effect, I used a gradient fill (yellow to gold), plus the following Outer Glow styles with the following configuration:

Brush polishing
Bring your drawing to life with motion. Add some scattered round dots to simulate speed and movement. Within the Brushes panel ( Photoshop > Window > Brushes, or F5 ), explore the sizing, scattering (with fade), spacing, and pressure:

The big cells are just the way the smaller ones, except the size and spacing. A bit of randomness is really welcome and exciting:

The "range" option in this step is very important - it will give a cellular-looking to the glowing particles - like if they were intensely vibrating:

Poor kid...got any blurry edge? Don't worry. Use the blur tool and correct that.

Finalizing the drawing

Be creative and fearless to do a complete mess with the shape - in my experience, the messier the better. Size down the area and crop. Draw as many layers as your computer's memory can handle. Sometimes you won't be able to merge layers because the effects and

styles that were applied. Also use layer's blending and opacity to give your shapes a translucent appearance. Our final result, after cropping:

Conclusion
Now is really easy to get waves, brightly flowing across the infinity of color...okay, I went a bit far ;). I hope this tutorial helped you. If so, please let us know more about your artworks and drawings based on this tutorial on the comments. Thank you!

Luminescent Lines
Written by RossJune 17, 2008

Here we will create some thin flowing lines that look as if they emit light. This technique is fairly simple and is a great way to create an abstract wallpaper or looks good integrated into another image. This tutorial will mainly explore the brush engine and you will also learn how to create custom brushes and use them effectively, combined with some interesting layer styles.

TUTORIAL FILES
If you are a PSD PRO member then download the PSD file and much more by going here.

FINAL IMAGE
This tutorial will show you how to create an image similar to this:

STEP 1
Start by creating a new document, here I used 1024x768px and 72dpi. Using the paint bucket tool (G) fill the background layer with black, alternatively you could use a dark gradient instead. Click the brush tool (B) then change the settings of this brush to a 1px round, white brush with 0% hardness. Create a new layer then select the pen tool (P) and in the main toolbar make sure paths is selected, now start slightly outwith the canvas on the left then using about four points draw a curve with a similar shape to the one below. Right click anywhere inside the document then select stroke path, make sure simulate pressure is checked then hit OK. Lastly hit the Esc key

twice

to

get

rid

of

the

path.

STEP 2
Now hold Ctrl and click on the layer with this curve in it, in the layers panel, this should make a selection around the line. Next go edit>define brush preset and save that curve as a brush. You can now hide this layer by clicking the eye next to it in the layers panel. Select the brush tool again then bring up the brush settings by going window>brushes. Choose the brush that you just made then use the same settings as below.

STEP 3
Create a new layer to hold our lines. Okay we now want to use this brush to create the lines in the picture so first drag from the left of the canvas to the right until you end up with something that resembles the image below. Not

that each line is slightly different, this is because in settings we made it change angle and roundness.

STEP 4
Now we will make the lines glow so right click on this layer in the layers panel then select blending options. Use the settings shown below for a drop shadow and an outer glow. Note that although we used a drop shadow we are still using it to create a glowing effect this is because we changed the blend mode of this effect from multiply to normal.

STEP 5
Right click this layer then select duplicate layer to make an exact copy. Now go into the blending options for this layer and the only thing we want to change is the gradient to the the other rainbow one because you will notice

there

are

two

different

rainbow

gradients,

one

has

transparent

edges

and

one

doesnt.

STEP 6
Optionally now you can blend out some of the ends of these lines by either using the erasor tool on both layers or a better way to do it would be to put both these layers in a new group then create a layer mask a paint it out some

parts.

If

your

happy

with

your

image

then

skip

on

over

to

the

next

step.

STEP 7
Here I added some beads on the line, this can be done using the same technique from step 3 to step 5 except use a small 2px or 3px round brush instead of the brush that you made yourself.

STEP 8

Now create a new layer and select a large soft brush then change the foreground color to a bright color and brush some random shapes. Repeat this with a few diifferent colors to end up with an effect like this.

STEP 9
Next go filter>blur>gaussian blur and use a value of around 100px then change the blend mode of this layer to color. Ill let you decide what opacity this layer should be but I used about 50%.

Step 1
First, lets create a nice background for our effect. Open up a new Photoshop file, and fill the background with black. Now, create a new layer and fill it with white. We will use the Lighting Effects filter (Filters > Render > Lighting Effects) on this layer to create a nice soft gradient. Next to the Intensity slider, choose any color that you like as long as it is somewhat dark. For this example, I have chosen a dark pink/purple.

Step 2
Now lets create a light from which all of our streaks will be created. Start by creating a new layer and setting its blend mode to screen. Then use the Elliptical Marquee Tool to make a circular selection and Feather(Select > Modify > Feather) it with a value of 20 pixels. This will give our light a nice glow around the edges. Using the Radial Gradient Fill tool, we are going to give it some color and intensity. I like to use 3 colors for the gradient. The first and inner most color should be white or something close to it. Make sure to start the fill in the middle of your selection and end it a the edge.

Step 3
Make a copy of the light layer that we just created, and hide the original. You will need it later to make additional streaks. Now, lets scale(Edit > Transform > Scale) the light so that it is much flatter. Doing this allows you to control the thickness of your streak.

Step 4
Now we get to start having fun. To give our light that streak look there are two filters we can use: Wave(Filter > Distort > Wave) and Twirl(Filter > Distort > Twirl). By using Wave, you can achieve some very nice looking irregular paths for your light. Like any other filter with sliders, it takes some tweaking to achieve the result you are after, but you will probably need to up the wave length and amplitude considerably. Also, try applying the Wave filter multiple times to the same layer.

The Twirl filter will give you a streak that is moving in a more radial type of path.

Also, dont be afraid to combine the two. By doing so you will be adding more detail to each streak, and making the overall effect more interesting.

This tutorial will show how to create a very simple abstract shape using a few brushes and effects. For this tutorial I will be using Adobe Photoshop CS3. If you have an older version of Adobe Photoshop, you may still be able to follow this tutorial. Keep in mind that it would be nearly impossible to duplicate this exact object, but this tutorial should give a guide to creating your own unique object. You should end up with something like this.

The first thing we need to do is download the brush set for this tutorial. You can download the free Trance Brushes from Brusheezy.com by clicking here.. After you download the brushes, extract the .abr file from the .zip and save it.

Open Adobe Photoshop and create a new document 700700.

Fill the background layer with black (#000000) and select the brush tool.

Load the brush set that you just downloaded by clicking the drop down next to the brush > the arrow point right > then the load option.

Select the Trance Brushes and load them. You will see the new brushes appear at the bottom of the brush set.

Reset the color swatches so that white is the foreground color and black is the background color. Create a new layer and use some of the brushes to create an abstract shape. When you are painting with these brushes, do not drag the mouse like you normally would. Instead click once to create the shape. There is really no science to this. First I will

use brush 305 to create this.

Next I will add a few more with #213.

Then I will use 215 to make a tail.

To complete this shape I will dab a couple times with the brushe that is numbered 380 for me.

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Like I said before, there is no set way to do this, just come up with a shape you like. Now to add a little bit of color I will apple a purple glow. Right click on the layer in the layers pallet and select blending options.

Apply an outer glow using the color #7200ff.

I also added an inner glow using the same color #7200ff.

Apply the changes and you should get something like this.

Now we are going to distort the image using the polar coordinate filter. Click Filter > Distort > Polar coordinates.

Make sure that Rectangular to Polar is selected and click ok

You will get something like this.

Where the object is located on the canvas will effect how it is distorted. If you do not like the way it came out, undo the filter and move the object. Then try to apply the filter again. Mine looks ok, but I think it is a little blurry.

I am going to apply the Smart Sharpen filter to sharpen up the image. Click Filter > Sharpen > Smart Sharpen.

You will have to play with the settings to see what looks the best for you, or you could skip this step completely. Here is what I used.

This is what my image looks like now.

That is all it takes to create a simple abstract shape using brushes. If you do a search online you can some great free brushes to play around with. You could also add some text to this and make into a background or something.

This... This is how I managed to finally get this down Want to know how to make those beautiful abstract bursts? I write this tutorial in the sense that you already know some basic abstract brushing. 1. Start, Blank image. 500x500 for this one. Go into your brushes menu, and click textures and choose one of them, like this one. I also stuck on scattering to make it more distorted and funkey.

2. White brush, black backround. Splatter, unevenly. Fiddle with the flow a bit. Make sure you do all this on a seperate layer, It helps in the long run.

3. Same as in every other cloud tutorial, smudge the hell out of it with a nice grunge brush, or something with tons of jagged edges, with a low flow. Make sure their uneven strokes, and random.

4. Now this is the part I hadn't found out for so long. Go Edit - Transform - Perspective. Make it sharp looking, or however you want it to fit your image.

5.Now to blotch it a bit. Duplicate it (copy and paste), and drop the lighting on it to -100.

6. Time to play with the perspective more. Take the dark layer, and change the perspective on it. Repeat this step as many times as wanted.

7. After this, you can continue to mess with it in further ways. Try waving it then fading the wave about 50%. Colour balances are also fun to fiddle with. Of course, because its on a seperate layer, It can be shoved into a render quite nicely

Step 1: Add A New Blank Layer

We're going to be adding our light streaks on their own separate layer, so the first thing we need to do is add a new blank layer to our document. To do that, click on the New Layer icon at the bottom of the Layers palette:

Clicking on the "New Layer" icon.

This adds a new blank layer, which Photoshop names "Layer 1", above our Background layer:

A new layer appears above the Background layer.

Step 2: Select The Pen Tool

As I mentioned at the beginning, we're going to create our light streaks by drawing paths and then stroking the paths with a brush. To draw paths, we need the Pen Tool, so select it from the Tools palette. You can also press the letter P to select it with the keyboard shortcut:

Select the Pen Tool.

Step 3: Select The "Paths" Option In The Options Bar

Photoshop gives us three different things that we can do with the Pen Tool. We can use it to draw vectorbased shapes, we can draw paths with it (which is what we want to do), and we can draw pixel-based shapes. We select between these three options by clicking on their icons up in the Options Bar at the top of the screen. You'll see three little square icons grouped together on the left side of the Options Bar. Click on the icon in the middle, which is the Paths option:

Click on the "Paths" icons in the Options Bar.

Step 4: Draw A Path Where You Want The First Light Streak To Appear
With the Pen Tool selected and the Paths option chosen in the Options Bar, we're ready to draw our first path. I want my light streaks to appear in the bottom half of the photo, somewhere around the woman's shoulders and neck area, so that's where I'll draw my first path. You'll want to add several curves to your path to make the light streak more interesting. I'll start by clicking somewhere in the bottom left corner of the image to add my first anchor point, then I'll drag out direction handles in the direction that I want my path to follow. Again, be sure to check out our Making Selections With The Pen Tool tutorial first if what I just said made no sense to you:

Clicking in the document to add an anchor point, then dragging out direction handles.

I'll continue drawing the rest of my first path by clicking and dragging a couple more times with the Pen Tool to add the rest of my path segments. I now have my first path running from left to right across the woman's shoulders and neck area:

The first path has now been added to the image.

Step 5: Select The Brush Tool

Now that we've drawn our first path, the next step is to stroke it with a brush. For that, we'll need Photoshop's Brush Tool, so select it from the Tools palette, or simply press the letter B on your keyboard:

Select the Brush Tool.

Step 6: Select The "40 Sampled Tip" Brush

Photoshop comes with several brushes that would work well for our light streak effect, but after trying a few of them out, I've found one I like the best. To select it, we'll need to bring up the Brushes palette.

There's a few different ways to bring up the Brushes palette, and one of them is to click on the Brushes palette toggle icon in the Options Bar at the top of the screen:

Click on the Brushes palette toggle icon to bring up the Brushes palette.

When the Brushes palette appears, click on the words Brush Tip Shape in the top left corner of the palette. Then, in the Brush tip selection area on the right, scroll down near the bottom of the list and select the 40 Sampled Tip brush. It just says "40" in the preview area, but if you have Tool Tips enabled in Photoshop's Preferences, you'll see the words "Sampled Tip" appear when you hover your mouse over the brush:

Click on the words "Brush Tip Shape" in the top left corner, then click on the "40 Sampled Tip" brush in the selection area.

Step 7: Lower The "Spacing" Amount To 1%

Down at the bottom of the Brushes palette, directly above the brush preview area, you'll see the Spacing option. Whenever you paint with a brush in Photoshop, even though it usually appears as though you're painting one continuous stroke, what Photoshop is really doing is "stamping" the image over and over again with the brush tip. If the "stamps" are close enough together, they appear as a continuous stroke. The Spacing option determines how far apart the stamps will appear, and by default, the option is set to 30% for our "40 Sampled Tip" brush. That's too much of a space for our effect. Use the slider bar to lower the Spacing amount all the way down to 1%. If you look at the brush preview area after lowering the Spacing amount to 1%, you'll see that the brush now appears as one continuous stroke:

Lower the "Spacing" amount to 1% to smooth out the appearance of the brush stroke.

Step 8: Set The Brush Size Control To "Pen Pressure"

If we were to stroke the path with our brush right now, the light streak effect wouldn't look very good because the brush would appear at the exact same size all along the path. We need the brush to taper off at both ends to create the illusion that the light streak is actually beginning at one end and ending at the other. For that, we'll need to tell Photoshop to simulate pen pressure for us, as if we were drawing with a pen tablet. Click directly on the words Shape Dynamics on the left of the Brushes palette, directly below "Brush Tip Shape". Make sure you click directly on the words, not just in the checkbox to the left of the words. Clicking inside the checkbox will enable the Shape Dynamics options but won't allow us to change any of them. We need to click on the words themselves to get access to the options. Once you've clicked on the words, you'll see the Shape Dynamics options appear on the right of the palette. At the very top, you'll see the words "Size Jitter" with a slider bar, and directly below the slider bar is the Controloption. This is where we get to decide how to control the size of our brush. We want Photoshop to simulate pen pressure, so select Pen Pressure from the Control drop-down menu:

Click directly on the words "Shape Dynamics" on the left, then set the "Control" option on the right to "Pen Pressure".

Now, at the moment, all we've done is told Photoshop that we want to control the size of our brush according to pen pressure, but what if you don't actually have a pen tablet? If you don't have one connected to your computer, you'll see a little warning icon appear to the left of the word "Control" telling you that a pen tablet is required, but don't worry about it. In a moment, we're going to be telling Photoshop to simulate pen pressure for us, so for this effect, it makes no difference whether you have a pen tablet or not.

Step 9: Set Your Foreground Color To White

We have our brush ready to go. Now all we need to do is choose the color we want to paint with. We're going to want to paint with white, which means we need our Foreground color to be white. Press the letter D on your keyboard to make sure your Foreground and Background colors are reset to their defaults, with black as your Foreground color and white as your Background color. Then press the letter X to swap them, making white your Foreground color:

The Foreground and Background color swatches in the Tools palette. White is now the Foreground color.

Step 10: Save Your Path

We have our path, we have our brush, and we've set our Foreground color to white. We're ready to create our first light streak! Switch over to Photoshop's Paths palette, which you'll find grouped in with the Layers and Channels palettes. You'll see your path listed, which is currently named "Work Path", along with a preview of the path on the left, similar to how layers are shown in the Layers palette with their name on the right and a preview area on the left. Whenever you create a new path, Photoshop automatically names it "Work Path", which means it's temporary. If you don't save the path before drawing a new one, the new path will replace the previous one and you'll have lost it. In many cases, this isn't a problem, but let's save our path just in case we want to go back to it later. To save a path, all we need to do is rename it. Simply double-click on the name "Work Path" and Photoshop will pop up theSave Path dialog box, with the suggested name of "Path 1" already entered for you. Click OK to exit out of the dialog box and Photoshop will rename the path "Path 1". The path is now saved:

The Paths palette showing the path now saved and renamed "Path 1".

Step 11: Stroke The Path With The Brush

Let's create our first light streak. Click on the small, right-pointing arrow in the top right corner of the Paths palette, which brings up the Paths palette's fly-out menu, then select Stroke Path from the list of options:

Select "Stroke Path" from the fly-out menu.

This brings up the Stroke Path dialog box. We want to stroke the path with our brush, so make sure the Tool option is set toBrush. Then, to tell Photoshop to simulate pen pressure for us, click inside the checkbox to the left of the words Simulate Pressure:

Set the "Tool" option to "Brush" and make sure "Simulate Pressure" is selected.

Click OK to exit out of the dialog box and Photoshop will stroke the path with the brush, creating our first light streak. Notice how the brush stroke tapers off at both ends thanks to that "Simulate Pressure" option:

The image after stroking the path with the brush.

If you think your brush stroke is either too thick or too narrow, simply press Ctrl-Z (Win) / CommandZ (Mac ) to undo the stroke, then make your brush larger or smaller by pressing either the left or right bracket keys on your keyboard. The left bracket key makes the brush smaller, and the right bracket key makes it larger. Try again once you've resized your brush. We've added our first light streak, but it doesn't look much like a light streak at the moment. It looks like a fancy white brush stroke, which is exactly what it is. To make it look more like a light streak, we need to add some color and some glow effects, and for that, we'll use a couple of simple layer styles.

Step 12: Add An "Outer Glow" Layer Style

Switch back over to your Layers palette. You'll see your white brush stroke in the preview area of "Layer 1". Click on theLayer Styles icon at the bottom of the Layers palette and select Outer Glow from the list of layer styles that appears:

Add an "Outer Glow" layer style in the Layers palette.

This brings up Photoshop's Layer Style dialog box set to the Outer Glow options in the middle column. Change the Blend Mode option at the top to Linear Light, which will give us a much more intense glow than what we'd normally get. Then choose a color for your glow by clicking on the small color swatch directly below the word "Noise". This will bring up Photoshop's Color Picker. You can either choose your color from the Color Picker, or if you prefer, you can sample a color directly from the image. To sample a color, simply move your mouse cursor over the image. You'll see your mouse icon turn into the Eyedropper icon. Move the eyedropper over the color you want to sample, then click to sample it. I'm going to sample a light area of the woman's skin to use as my outer glow color:

Sampling a color from the image to use as the color for the outer glow.

Once you've chosen your color, click OK to exit out of the Color Picker. Lastly, increase the Size of the outer glow to somewhere around 30 pixels. You may need to raise or lower that amount depending on the size and resolution of your image:

Change the blend mode, color and size of the outer glow.

Don't exit out of the Layer Style dialog box just yet because we still have one more layer style to add. Here's how my light streak looks so far after adding my outer glow:

The image after applying an outer glow to the light streak.

Step 13: Add An "Inner Glow" Layer Style

We've added an outer glow layer style to our light streak. Now let's add an inner glow style. With the Layer Style dialog box still open, click on the words Inner Glow on the left of the dialog box, directly below "Outer Glow":

Select "Inner Glow" on the left of the Layer Style dialog box.

You'll see the Inner Glow options appear in the middle column of the dialog box. Once again change the Blend Mode option at the top to Linear Light. Then click on the color swatch below the word "Noise" and either choose a color from the Color Picker or, as I did with the outer glow, sample a color directly from the image. I'm going to sample a darker area of the woman's skin for my inner glow color:

Sampling a darker skin color to use as the color for the inner glow.

Once you've chosen the color for your inner glow, click OK to exit out of the Color Picker. Finally, increase the Size of your inner glow to around 10 pixels. As with the outer glow, you may need to play around with this value a bit depending on the size and resolution of your image:

Change the blend mode, color and size of the inner glow.

Click OK when you're done to exit out of the Layer Style dialog box. Your light streak should now have an intense glow to it:

The light streak now appears with a bright, colorful glow.

That thin dark line we're seeing through the middle of our light streak is the path. Don't worry, it won't be there when we're done.

Step 14: Edit The Path To Create A Slight Variation Of It

Let's make our light streak a bit more interesting by adding a couple more streaks to it. We can do that easily by simply editing our path to create some slight variations of it and then stroking each variation with our brush. Switch back to your Paths palette so we can edit our path. Then, hold down your Ctrl (Win) / Command (Mac ) key and move your mouse cursor directly over any part of the path. As soon as it's over the path, you'll see the cursor turn into a white pointer, which means you now have temporary access to Photoshop's Direct Selection Tool, which is the tool we need to edit our path:

Hold down "Ctrl" (Win) / "Command" (Mac) and move the mouse cursor directly over the path to temporarily access the Direct Selection Tool (white pointer).

Click on the path with the Direct Selection Tool to select it, then make some minor adjustments to the path to create a slightly different path. You can drag an anchor point to a slightly different spot, or move direction handles to adjust the curves of the path, or even drag a path segment to a slightly different position. Just don't touch the anchor points at either end of the path because we want each variation we create to begin and end at the exact same spot. So other than those two anchor points, the rest of the path can be edited any way you like. We're not looking for major changes to the path. Small, subtle changes are all we need. Here, I've changed the two main curves of my path slightly by dragging the two direction handles extending out from my middle anchor point. You can see how the curves of the path no longer exactly match the curve of the first light streak:

Create a slight variation of the initial path by moving anchor points, direction handles or path segments.

We can now stroke this variation of the path with our brush. But before we do, we'll probably want to use a slightly smaller brush this time, so press the left bracket key on your keyboard a couple of times to make the brush a bit smaller. To stroke the variation of our path, there's no need to go through the hassle of selecting "Stroke Path" from the Paths palette's fly-out menu like we did last time. Simply click on the Stroke Path icon at the bottom of the Paths palette:

Click on the "Stroke Path" icon at the bottom of the Paths palette.

Photoshop strokes the new path we created with our brush. Since we're still working on the same layer in the Layers palette, the Outer Glow and Inner Glow layer styles are automatically applied to our new light streak:

The new path has now been stroked with the brush, and the layer styles are automatically applied to it.

Step 15: Create A Couple More Path Variations And Stroke Them With The Brush
Repeat the previous step one or two more times to create more variations of the path and stroke each one with the brush. Try changing the size of the brush each time using the left and right bracket keys to add even more interest to the light streak. If you don't like the brush stroke you just added, simply press Ctrl+Z (Win) / Command+Z (Mac ) to undo it, then re-edit the path and try again. If you want to see what your light streak looks like without the path blocking your view, simply click anywhere in the empty area below the path in the Paths palette. This will deselect the path and hide it from view. To see the path again, click on it in the Paths palette. You'll need to have your path visible any time you want to stroke it with your brush. If the path is not visible, the icons at the bottom of the Paths palette become grayed out and unavailable. Here's my image after editing my path a couple more times and stroking each new path variation with the brush. Again, since we're still working on the same layer, "Layer 1", in the Layers palette, the Outer Glow and Inner Glow layer styles are automatically applied to each new brush stroke. I've hidden my path from view so we can see more easily what the light streak now looks like with all its different variations:

The first light streak after adding a few variations to it.

Step 16: Copy The Layer Styles On "Layer 1"

And with that, we've created our first light streak! You're probably going to want to add at least one more to your photo, and it's a good idea to place each light streak on its own layer, but we can cut down on some of the work we'll need to do by copying the layer styles we've already applied to our first light streak and simply pasting them onto each new layer we create. Switch back over to your Layers palette. You should still have "Layer 1" selected. Go up to the Layer menu at the top of the screen, choose Layer Style, and then choose Copy Layer Style:

With "Layer 1" selected, go to Layer > Layer Style > Copy Layer Style.

Step 17: Add A New Blank Layer

Click on the New Layer icon at the bottom of the Layers palette to add another blank layer. Photoshop will add the new layer above "Layer 1" and automatically name it "Layer 2":

Add a new blank layer above "Layer 1".

Step 18: Paste The Layer Styles Onto The New Layer
With the new layer selected, go back up to the Layer menu at the top of the screen, choose Layer Style once again, and this time, choose Paste Layer Style:

Go to Layer > Layer Style > Paste Layer Style.

The Outer Glow and Inner Glow styles from "Layer 1" are now added to "Layer 2" and will automatically be applied to the next light streak we create!

Step 19: Add Another Light Streak

With a new layer added and the layer styles from "Layer 1" already applied to the new layer, we can easily create a second light streak. Simply draw a new path with the Pen Tool, save the path if you want by renaming it "Path 2" (or whatever you want to name it), then stroke the path with the brush. Once you've created the main light streak, hold down Ctrl (Win) /Command (Mac) to access the Direct Selection Tool and edit the path, moving anchor points, direction handles and/or path segments to create

a few slight variations of it, and then stroke each variation with the brush, using a different brush size each time. Here's my result after adding a second light streak to my photo:

The image after adding a second light streak.

If you don't want both light streaks to be the same color, you can easily change the colors simply by editing the layer styles. Let's say I want my second light streak to be a different color. To edit the layer styles, all I need to do is double-click on the Layer Style icon on the far right of "Layer 2":

Double-click on the Layer Style icon to edit the layer styles for that layer.

This will pop open the Layer Style dialog box for me. All I'd need to do is click on the words Outer Glow on the left side of the dialog box, which brings up the Outer Glow options in the middle column, then click on the color swatch and choose a new color either from the Color Picker or by sampling a different color from the image. Click OK to exit out of the Color Picker, then click on the words Inner Glow on the left to access the Inner Glow options. Click the color swatch, choose a new color, click OK to exit out of the Color Picker, then click OK to exit out of the Layer Style dialog box. You can edit the colors of the light streaks any time you want simply by editing the layer styles. Here's my final result after editing the layer styles on "Layer 2" and changing the color of my second light streak slightly, using colors I sampled from the woman's hair:

The final result.

Step 1:
As with pretty much every tutorial Ive ever written, we begin with a radial gradient. This one is pretty harsh and goes from a reddish brown color to black. Here are the exact color codes: Foreground color #922f00 Background color #000000

Step 2:
In this tutorial, we actually need a pretty intense center, so what well do is duplicate the layer we just made and set the one above to a blending mode of Color Dodge. There are a few types of blending modes, darkening ones, lightening ones, colorizing ones and inverting ones. Color Dodge is probably the strongest of the lightening ones. As you can see in the screenshot, it produces a pretty full-on center.

Step 3:
Now in our glow effect, it helps to have a nice textured background. So we are going to create a sort of smoky haze. To do this, create a new layer, then make sure you have white, #ffffff, and black, #000000, selected as your background and foreground colors. Then go to Filter > Render > Clouds. This will give you the same random cloud pattern as above.

Step 4:
Now set the opacity of your layer to Overlay and 30% transparency. In some instances this would be enough, but for our needs we want it even smokier looking! So go to Filter > Sketch > Chrome and use default settings of 4 and 7 for detail and smoothness respectively. Actually you can probably mess around with those if you want, but the defaults seem to be fine. When youre done, the result should look a lot smokier (once its overlayed at 30% transparency that is). You can see the result in the background of the next screenshot.

Step 5:
Now before we can start making glows, we need to have something to glow. Heres where we break out the pen tool. If you have used the pen tool much I suggest playing around with it a little. There are some tricky things you can do with shortcuts, but for this tutorial you dont need those. In fact all we want to achieve are some nice curves. Fortunately this isnt too hard. I find the trick is not to use too many points. Instead rely on the Pen Tools natural curving and drag the mouse out for each point so you get a big angle. In this S-curve shown above, Ive only used three points, the starting point, the end point and one in between to give it the bend.

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Step 6:
Once you have a nice curve, create a new layer. Then click on the Paintbrush Tool (B) and choose a very thin, hard brush. As you know, soft brushes are the blurry ones and hard brushes are more solid. In this case I suggest using a thickness of 3. Note that you can have any color selected as your brush color because well go over it with a layer style shortly.

Step 7:
Now switch back to the Pen Tool. You must switch tools in order to do this next bit. Then right-click and select Stroke Path. A little dialog box will appear as in the screenshot. Choose Brush and make sure there is a tick next to Simulate Pressure. This is important as it will give your curve tapered ends which will make it rock! Next right click again and select Delete Path.

Step 8:
You should now have something like the above. Just a thin, cool swishy thing.

Step 9:
Now we add some glows. The easiest way to make our glows is to use layer styles. And the best way to tell you what layer styles to use is to tell you to download the sample Photoshop PSD from the bottom of this page and then open it up and look through them there. In a nutshell, Ive added two sets of glows. To do this I first use Outer Glow and then because I want a second glow, I change the Drop Shadow settings so that it becomes a glow (you can do this by reducing the Distance and changing the blend mode to something like Color Dodge) Oh and also Ive used a Color Overlay to make the item white so that its like the center of an intense glow.

Step 10:
So now you have the same line but with a cool glow coming off it. The beauty of using a layer style is that you can copy and paste it to other layers. To do this you just right-click the layer and select Copy Layer Style then create a new layer and right-click and choose Paste Layer Style.

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Step 11:
So now repeat the same process a couple of times to make more squiggly lines. In this instance, I made one a little thicker by changing the paint brush size before I did the Stroke Path bit of the process. I also made a third line and erased part of it and sorta made it join the other two to look like a cool triangular shape.

Step 12:
Here Ive added some text in and applied the same layer style to the text layers. Its important to pay lots of care and attention to your text. When youre first starting out, use simple fonts and play with spacing between letters, words and sizes. You can achieve a lot with just some small tricks. Here Ive contrasted the three words by making Glow a lot larger and in regular casing, then made Advanced and FX much smaller, with greater space between the letters and all caps. You can control spacing with text using the Character window. If it isnt already open go to Window > Character and it should appear. Mess about with the different settings until you learn what each controls.

Step 13:
Now we add some particles. To do this, create a new layer then select a tiny paint brush size 3 and just paint some dots on. It helps if they are clustered towards the center of the glow so that it looks like they are emanating from there. You can make some of the central ones larger by doubling over on them with a second paint brush dab. Then paste our Glow layer style on to that layer too!

Step 14:
Now thats looking pretty cool, but it will look even cooler if we give it some subtle coloring instead of this super gaudy red. So create a new layer, and using a radial gradient, draw a blue to white gradient as shown.

Step 15:
Then set that layer to a blending mode of Color and change the opacity to 50%. Youll see that it turns the image kind of bluish. I think thats looking much cooler already, but just to go that extra step I also created a couple of extra layers, one with some faint yellow and one with faint purple. You can see them in the screenshot above. I set each layer to blending mode of Color and thin opacities so that they all fade together.

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Step 16:
And there you have it: advanced glow effects with a cool color blend and subtle smoky background combined make for a pretty great effect. Just remember to experiment with settings and try applying the glow to different things to see how it turns out. And try different color combinations, some surprising combinations turn out really beautiful. Good luck!

In this Photoshop tutorial well be walking through the process of making an abstract artwork, using abstract 3D renders, textures, and more.

Preface
First of all, I would like to thank roxymanlol from deviantART for writing this tutorial and giving me permission to use it. Also, the resources used in this tutorial can be found below. Before we start, you should know that if you want to make an abstract art piece like the one being made in this tutorial, normally you would have to make some 3D renders. But for this you wont have to make your own, because on some websites such as deviantART and design websites/forums they have 3D renders that you can download for free. Weve also included the render used in this tutorial as a free download. Machinery Stock/Texture Package Wood Texture Package Abstract render by roxymanlol

o o o

1. Render(s) + Background
Start by making a new document in Photoshop something around 768 x 1024 pixels will be fine for this tutorial (learning purposes). But if you were working for print or something, you would want to make it much larger, using 300-600 resolution. Now we need to get some 3D renders together. For this you can just download the ones weve used from above.

(find renders on deviantART)

2. Texture Work
Now comes the important part, called postwork of our abstract image. First you have to find some cool textures to add into the image, I downloaded some from Resurgere (resurgere.deviantart.com). By the way, I chose a wood texture and set the layer mode to Screen, then erased away the ugly parts, actually the parts that were on top of the render.

So, now youve got something interesting like that going on, add another interesting texture. This time Ive used a machinery stock photo from resurgere again.

After youve got your stock photo in there, change the layer mode to Soft Light and erase away the ugly parts again.

Now, I placed my render in another position and placed it on top of all the other layers. Change the layer mode for this layer to Lighten and mess with the opacities, etc. You may also want to try different layer modes with this. You may want to download the PSD file at the end of the tutorial and take a look through all of the layers.

3. Additional Shapes
Use your imagination here and add some details to your work, in this case I used some lightning effect brushes and I added a 3D letter S in Photoshop, to add to the image:

4. Highlights & More

With a bright brush I made an illumination effect in the center of the image, to make a focal point of our abstract. After adding the brushing, change the layer mode to Overlay (100%):

You dont have to be exact with this, just make a little bit of nice brushing and make it look nice

5. Colourise
Now you can manipulate the colors as you wish. In this case I used a Blue Photo Filter, Blue/Green Gradient in Overlay and 50% opacity and Selective Color. Now I get a result like this, which Im quite happy with:

6. Lighting Effects
Using the Pen Tool and the Gradient Tool (radial gradients), with a white color you should make some really nice lighting effects like shown below:

After you made your lighting effects, change the layer mode to Overlay, and if necessary, duplicate the layer a few times.

7. Additional Render(s)
I then added in a small abstract render that I downloaded from deviantART. For this I used Screenlayer mode with 100%.

You can find free abstract renders here on deviantART.

8. Finalizing
In finishing, add some nice brushes or interesting patterns, such as diagonal lines or squares with some space between the pattern. To get a nice effect you should try to place them quite randomly. After placing your brushes or patterns, change the layer mode to Overlay and it will add a very cool finishing effect. If your effects dont show up very well, duplicate the layer a few times.

Be sure to also experiment with the typography, try some unique fonts. Get some fonts from either of these websites: Urban Fonts, DaFont, Font Space.

Final Image Preview

Before we get started, lets take a look at the image well be creating. Click the screenshot below to view the full-size image. As always, the full layered Photoshop file is available via our Psdtuts+ Plus membership.

Step 1

Create a new document and a new layer. Rename the layer to texture and fill it with white. Make sure that the foreground is white and the background is black. Then go to Filter>Texture>Texturizer, and use Canvas for the Texture, 80% Scaling, and 2 for the Relief.

Step 2
Place an image in your document. The one used in this tutorial can be downloaded at this link. Then delete the background. You can use the Path Tool (P) or the Polygonal Lasso Tool (L). Tip: It doesnt need to be perfect because we will apply some filters in the next step.

Step 3
Select the layer of the girl and go to Image>Adjustments>Levels. We want to increase the whites here. Then go to Image>Adjustments>Hue/Saturation, and change the Saturation to -65.

Step 4
Now go to Filter>Artistic>Watercolor. Use the following settings: Brush Detail 9, Shadow Intensity 0, and Texture 1.

Step 5
With the girls layer selected, go to Layer>Layer Mask>Reveal All. Then select the Brush Tool (B), with black for the color, and mask the body of the girl.

Step 6
We need the Bittbox Watercolor Brushes 2 that you can download at this link. Next we create a new layer. Then with the Brush Tool (B) selected, choose the seventh brush from the BB Watercolor Brushes. Use black for the color. Then reduce its size to fit the document. After that, rotate and resize the layer. The idea is to create watercolor-style hair for the girl using the brush.

Step 7
Now go to Layer>Layer Style>Blending Options. Change the Fill Opacity to 0. Then select the Color Overlay option. Use red for the color and Multiply for the blend mode. For the Opacity use 70%. Then select the Satin option. Use Hard Light for the blend mode, purple (#5d085c) for the color, 20 for the Angle, Distance 4px, and Size 12px.

Step 8
Create a new layer. Then select another brush with the Brush Tool(B). I used the 17th Bittbox Brush. The concept were using is to design different creative-looking hairstyles. So lets continue with that. On a new layer, paint some brush strokes in the middle of the screen. Then resize and rotate them until they look good. You should achieve a stylized hair look, as in the image below.

Step 9
Go to Layer>Layer Style>Blending Options. Set the Fill Options to 0. Then add a Color Overlay. Use Overlay for the blend mode, Blue (#002cec) for the color, and set it to 50% Opacity. Then select Satin. Then use the following settings: a slightly darker blue (#065795) color, a Linear Burn for the blend mode, a 100% Opacity, a 19 Angle, an 11px Distance, and a 14px Size.

Step 10
Lets brush in some more hair. This time well use green. Create a new layer, and select the Brush Tool(B). Then select another brush from the watercolor set. Select the last one, reduce its size, and paint more hair. Use just one click when brushing. After that you can resize and rotate it. Now go to Layer>Layer Style>Blending Options. Again set the Fill Options to 0. Then add a Color Overlay, use Multiply for the blend mode, Green (#18ff00) for the color, and 100% for the Opacity. Then select Satin. Use the following settings: darker green (#0b9600), Darken for the blend mode, 100% Opacity, 19 Angle, 4px Distance, and 7px Size.

Step 11
Next we repeat the process one more time. Create a new layer. Then select the Brush Tool(B). Select another brush, reduce its size, and paint more hair. Adjust it by resizing and rotating it until it looks good. Again, go to Layer>Layer Style>Blending Options. Change the Fill Options to 0. Then add a Color Overlay, use Hard Light for the blend mode, yellow (#ffe400) for the color, and 100% for the Opacity. Then select Satin. Use the following settings: darker yellow (#a2a406), Color Burn for the blend mode, 100% Opacity, 19 Angle, 17px Distance, and 73px Size.

Step 12
Now select the layer with the girls face. Change the blend mode to Screen. Then make some adjustments, like fixing the neck using a regular brush with a white color.

Step 13
Type the text you want; I typed Psdtuts+. Then go to Layer>Layer Style>Gradient Overlay. Create a gradient using Red, Yellow, Green, and Blue. Use 180 for the angle and Normal for the blend mode. Create another layer, and make sure that the text is on top of this new layer. Then with the Rectangular Marquee Tool, create a rectangle selection and fill it with white. Next we merge these two layers (the text with the white rectangle). This is necessary to add some text effects; otherwise the filters wouldnt work well.

Step 14
Now we apply some filters to the text. First go to Filter>Brush Strokes>Sprayed Strokes. Use Stroke Length 17, Spray Radius 0, and Stroke Direction Vertical. After that go to Filter>Artistic>Watercolor. Use the following settings: Brush Detail 11, Shadow Intensity 0, and texture 1. That will create a nice text effect, or you could experiment with different filters until you achieve optimal results.

Conclusion
This tutorial presents a quick and easy way to create a nice design. We achieved this by mixing a photo with watercolor effects. We used some watercolor brushes and played with blend modes. Keep in mind though, if you can paint it for real, you will be able to create very original artwork, like the designers I mentioned before.

Step 1
Create a new document. On the Background layer, double-click to open the Layer Style dialog box and apply the Gradient Overlay with black and green (#9dc5c7).

Step 2
Create a new layer. Set white for the foreground and black for the background color. After that, go to Filter>Render>Clouds. Rename the layer to Clouds.

Step 3
Change the Blend Mode of the clouds layer to Multiply 60%. Duplicate the layer and rename it to radial blur. After that, go to Filter>Blur>Radial Blur.

Step 4
Duplicate the background layer and move it up in front of the other layers. Rename it to Gradient Light and go to the Layer Styles dialog box. Change the Fill Opacity to 0% under the Advanced Blending settings. After that in the Gradient Overlay settings, change the Blend Mode to Color Dodge and the scale to 70%.

Step 5
Place your logo in the center of the image and change the Layer Styles. First change the Color Overlay to black and then add a Bevel and Emboss as shown in the image below.

Step 6
Create a new Folder and call it lights and move it behind the logo layer. Inside that folder, select the Ellipse Tool (U) and create a circle that will be almost entirely behind the logo. Using the Pen Tool (P), create some shapes that will be the lights. Use the image below for reference. Make sure that all of these objects are inside the lights folder.

Step 7
If you are using the CS3 version of Photoshop, you can convert the layers to Smart Objects in order to use the non-destructive filters feature. Apply a Gaussian Blur to the layers. Each one will have a different value because of their sizes.

Step 8
Select the lights folder and change the Blend Mode to Color Dodge. Duplicate the two bottom lights and move them to the center.

Step 9
Using the Ellipse Tool (U), again create a small circle but this time in front of the logo. This circle will be a reflection on the logo.

Conclusion
Now you can add some textIve used Myriad Pro Light. Although this effect looks very cool and sort of complicated to achieve, its really easy and can be done pretty quickly. Using Render Clouds, blurs, and blend modes, we can create really amazing lighting effects.

Creating Smoke

TAGS

effects photoshop smoke tutorial wallpaper

Some time ago I had posted an article showing how to create a smoke effect in photoshop, and to achieve that I used a photo of smoke and some photoshop filters. However, some people had said at the time that I should have done the smoke as well and its exactly what I will show on this post right now.
I had previously thought about what would be the best way to create smoke in photoshop, and Ive read some tutorials online and watched some episodes of the amazing pixelPerfect podcast, to find a good and easy solution for the matter at hand. Actually it was easier than I had expected.

1 - Create some Shapes: I created some random shapes.

2 - Apply a Gaussian blur on each shape

3 - Using the liquify filter

4 - Positioning the shapes

5 - Adding some colors

Add a background color on the layer of the shape, otherwise the Hue/Saturation won't work

6 - Creating a cloud behind the smoke

Set a feather with a high value, like 40 to 80, and after that apply the hue/saturation on the cloud too

7 - Adding a gradient to create an atmosphere

The gradient will give a atmosphere and more depth to the image

Final Result

The whole process took me about 30 to 40 minutes tops, its pretty simple, although it can be quite hard to create a natural smoke with the liquify filter, the best thing to do is to play with the brushes and with the tools to achieve the desired effect.

This tutorial will show you how to make a beautiful lighting effect on scatters by using Photoshop. Keep in mind that I only provide the basic guidelines to creating this type of effect. There are tons of possibilities if you spend time to play with the settings and keep your creativity wide open. NOTICE: CLICK ON THE THUMBNAIL IMAGE TO ENLARGE FOR MORE DETAILS Step 1 Create the Head Open a new document, changed the current layer to Background layer and fill Black. Next, create a new layer, then you should select some brush you like, in this case I choose a kind of vector brush, which you could find in the attached file at the bottom of this tutorial.

Step 2 Creating the Tail Create another new layer (layer > new > layer), called it Tail. Select the Brush tool and open the Brushes Panel (Window > Brushes). Now we will play around with its setting to achieve the set best effect. The final purpose is to create a set of randomized dots. In this scope of article, I choose settings as below: - Brush Tip Shape: (Hardness: 100%, Roundness: 100%, Spacing: 1%) - Shape Dynamics: (Size Jitter: 100%, Minimum Diameter: 20%)

- Scatter: (Both Axes, Scatter: 1000%)

Step 3 Create the colorful effect Create another new layer, above the background layer, name it Color Base. This is just a simple step, you choose a soft brush, then fill like the picture below with any color you like.

Step 4 Make selection Now, select the Head layer firstly, then go to the menu Select->Load Selection. Then choose New Selection and press Ok.

Next step, you repeat the above step, but choose Add to Selection in the Load Selection dialog box instead. Now, you have loaded the selection. With the Color Base layer active, you click on the Add layer mask button at the bottom of the layer panel. Then you will have the result like the demonstration below.

Step 5 Add glow effect You select Head layer then go to Layer > Layer Style > Outer Glow. You could play around with those settings such as size, spread, opacity however remember to set Blend Mode to Overlay, and the color to White. Of course, everything could be changed even you go to the last steps. Next, you should do the exam progress on Tail layer. To end of this step. Right click on the Color Base then choose Apply Layer Mask. Then, youwill go to Filter > Blur > Gaussian Blur. You should set the Radius between 4-6. In this case, I give it the value 5.

Step 6 Make up the head

Create a new layer above the Color Base layer. Then, you choose the Gradient tool and use the Foreground to Transparent preset. Go into the Gradient Editor and click the foreground color slider and change its position to 25%. Exit the editor, pick a color that pleases you (can be changed later) and make a Radial Gradient over the Head layer. You could move the layer to match up with the Head layer.

Now with that layer still active, go to Layer > Layer Style > Color Overlay. Change the color to White and blend mode to Overlay. Probably, there are hundreds of ways to customized this effect till this way, so I just remind you the point, keep your creative going, and spend time to try settings. For my case, I want to add some more colorful effect in this step, and I change some setting by press Ctrl + U to open Hue/Saturation dialog and give it the settings like below.

Step 7 Add more scatters

Now, duplicate the Head layer and pick the smudge tool, then select a soft brush at around 50% strength. This step is not easy to do. must be patient to smudge the new copied layer along the picture, try to use another tool such as Eraser to have the best result.

Then, you duplicate the current layer. Right click on it, choose Blending Options, and set the Blend mode to Dissolve. You should notice the opacity during this step to adjust the appearances of the scatters around the main object. Again, the Eraser tool need to be used reasonably to get rid of scatters.

Step 9 Adjust settings Actually, it is hard to tell you exactly how I come to the final result as below. You should play around with opacity, fill settings, combine with eraser, smudge tools to finalize the art work.

I have included 2 set of vector brushed for you guys to play around with the full PSD version.