Making Funny Disco Style Background

In this little Photoshop tutorial we'll be designing funny disco style background, for your wallpapers, greeting cards, etc.

Let's start with a new document. For this Photoshop tutorial I'm using a size of 1000×1000 pixels, 72 dpi and black color.

First of all press D to set up foreground and background colors black and white, then create a new layer and apply Filter > Render > Clouds:

Now use Image > Adjustments > Brightness > Contrast to make clouds more contrast:

Now, we have picture like this one:

After that apply Filter > Noise > Add Noise with similar settings to these:

Your picture should look as mine:

Then select Single Row Marquee Tool and make selection as below:

Press Ctrl+T to transform the selection and move it up and down. Now your have a picture like this:

Deselect chosen area with Ctrl+D and apply the following layer style:
• Gradient Overlay

See the difference now:

Then continue with selection the Eraser Tool and soft round brush and clear some upper and lower parts of image as shown on a picture below:

Then chose another one brush with presets similar to these (it is also standard Photoshop brush):

And make holes in this layer:

Ok, now apply Filter > Blur > Motion Blur with the next presets:

To get the next picture:

Looks not good yet! Ok, next we'll add cool white lines to the background. Now before we can start making our lines, I would like to note you that you need to get out the Brush Tool before and set up with the following settings:

Also set foreground color as white. Get out the Pen Tool (you need to make sure that you're working with Paths instead of Shape Layers) and drag the first line onto your canvas like I've done in the below screenshot:

Create a new layer, then right-click and select Stroke Path.

A little dialog box will appear as in the screenshot. Choose the Brush from stroke path resources and press OK. The picture use to look as mine:

Next right click again and select Delete Path. Add two more lines, making the same things two more times:

Now select the Polygonal Lasso Tool to make selection of small part of line as below:

Then select the Blur Tool (Strength: 50%) and blur the selected part of line. Press Ctrl+D to deselect it. You can see the result below:

Also you can blur more parts of different lines:

Now get out the Brush Tool and a soft round brush (size of 9 px) to make little white dots on the blurred and normal lines boundary.

Ok, let's move onto the next step. Create a new one layer, then select the Ellipse Tool and make different white rounds as on picture below (Note: every time pres Shift to make all the rounds on the same layer):

Set opacity up to 20% for this layer. Then create a new layer and create new white rounds on it and set opacity up to 20% for this layer too.

Make the last one layer for white rounds. Do the same things again.

Ok, merge all layers with white rounds and lines in one and apply the following layer style:
• Gradient Overlay

Now your canvas should look as mine:

After that things set opacity to 50% up and press Ctrl+J to duplicate layer, then apply Filter > Blur > Box Blur with similar settings to these:

See the difference:

Ok, to finish off the background I think we should add some white dots on it to make it funnier and more contrast. Get out the Brush Tool and a soft round brush (size of 9 pixels) and put some dots on the new layer as below. Set opacity up to 50% for this layer.

Well, I think I've pretty much explained all I can for this tutorial!

Starburst Photoshop Tutorial

Start off by making a nice black to white gradient.

Next choose Filter > Distort > Wave and use the following settings, or choose some of your own to get a unique effect.

Next choose Filter > Distort > Polar Coordinates, and use the default settings.

Duplicate your current layer, and rotate is 90 degrees. To do this choose Edit > Transform > Rotate 90 degrees. Next change the layer mode to "Overlay"

While your still on this second layer we are going to add one more filter. Choose Filter > Distort > Twirl.

Your should have a pretty interesting design going by now, if you want to give some color to it make a new layer and change the layer mode to "color." I added a purple - blue gradient.

This is looking fairly interesting, but I'm going for more of a "vortex" feel, so lets add some depth. Once you have colored your image flatten all the layers. To do this choose Layer > Flatten Image. Now go to Filter >Distort > Pinch.

Create simple light stripes effect in Photoshop

Today I'm going to teach you a simple tutorial on creating a simple light stripes effect in Photoshop. The tutorial is simple and I think it's suitable for Photoshop beginners too. Before getting into the steps, please take a look at the final result below. This light stripes effect looks cool in both dark and bright, hot and cold background too, so I think it's a really cool and useful effect.

The final result

Tutorial

First open a new document at any size you like, but preferable more than 1000px wide and 1500px height or higher. Then fill up the background with Linear Gradient from top to bottom with light colors. In this example I use: #c6dfe5, #ffdfb3, #969391. Then, by using the Ellipse Shape Tool, draw out some ellipses in the same layer like picture below. Well it looks like a group of clouds.

Duplicate the Shape Layer that created just now and hide the original layer (for backup purposes). Then, by selecting the duplicated Shape Layer which containing the clouds, right click the layer in Layers Palette and select 「Rasterize Layer」 to rasterize it. Immediate after this, apply Gaussian Blur on it with about 10px Radius.

Now we are entering the core step in this tutorial. After rasterizing and applying Gaussian Blur, now select the Rectangular Marquee Tool, and draw a selection at the most left part of the cloud. Then, hit Ctrl+T to turn the selection into Transform mode. You can drag the selection longer (press alt while dragging to get equal dragging on both top and bottom part) and hit Enter to complete the step. Now, marquee select the next part of the cloud and repeat the step until the end like picture below.

The step above is to create multiple length of light stripes. For better result, you can marquee selects them with different sizes of width, for example, some fatter and some thinner. Besides dragging longer, you can also make them shorter too. You can also overlap the new selection with the previous one to create richer result. The picture below are the result of the select+drag step.

Well, the result does not look good at this moment. So, in the final step, select the layer and open up Motion Blur window (Filter > Blur > Motion Blur). In here you can smooth out the blurring effect even more, shown in the picture below. I'm using the maximum 250px Distance to achieve the smoother light stripes. Well this is the reason to use a bigger height of canvas so that the blurring effect won't get cut by the canvas boundary.

Now the light stripes effect is done!

Light Stripes in action examples

This light stripes effect are quite flexible to useful too as mentioned earlier. The first example below, you can also use it to create a color spectrum with dark background. While the second example showing the application of light stripes effect in web design. Looks cool isn't it?

Fantasy Art Photopshop Tutorial - Plasma in the Lake

This tutorial was originally posted on loreleiweb.com but due to technical reasons moved to pswish.com. The tutorial remains a copyright property of Lorelei (me!)

The requests for Fantasy Art tutorials are enormous, I still get emails and Pms from people asking to do more Fantasy Art tuts, so here is one more, called 「Plasma」 (Star, not the TV!) which I hope you'd enjoy

1. Make a new canvas, we used 600*480 px here, but the size is of course optional.

2. Select the Gradient Tool, using two shades of blue (see below), fill your canvas, so that the darker colour will be on top.

3. Take a photo of a girl. Traditionally I am using Becca』s photo from her Deviant Art account, but you can replace her with any semi-sitting figure of your choice. Crop the figure and paste her unto your canvas. In needed, resize her so that she will fit in.

4. To get rid of the visible crappy cropping, and to give the girl more emphasis, add blueish glow to her by going to Layer >> Layer Styles >> Outer Glow and applying the following settings:

This is what you would get:

5. Make a new Layer. Make sure your primarily and secondary colours are black and white. Go to Filter >> Render >> Clouds

And, if needed apply the clouds effect a several times to achieve the desired randomly 「clouded」 effect.

6. Reduce the opacity of the layer to semi-visible.

7. Press Ctrl+T for free transform, and then right mouse click and 「Scew」. Drag the left corner of the clouds layer, as shown on the illustration below:

Press 「Enter」 when you are done, then Ctrl + D to deselect the layer.

8. Duplicate the clouds layer. Select the upper layer and go to Edit >> Transform >> Flip Horizontal.

9. Select the girl's layer from layers panel and drag it to the top, so that it would be your utmost upper layer.

Remember to remove the parts where layers turn to be on top of one another.

10. Take a photo of a lake with water circles. We used this one from Digital Free Photo, but again - this is optional.

Paste the layer unto your composition, so that the circles in the water will be 「around」 the girls or your main figure.

11. Using the Eraser Tool, remove the lower part of the girl's layer, so create the illusion as if she is really sitting inside the water and the water circles are 「from」 her.

12. Set lake's layer blending options to Luminosity.

13. Drag the Layers of the clouds on top of the water later and using eraser tool with soft edge (100px) remove the sharp parts, so that only the 「steaming」 clouds will remain, no edges.

14. Now to the hard bit - creating the plasma cycles.
Make a new layer (this is important) and place it on top of all the others.

15 Using the Elliptical Marquee tool, draw and ellipse. While the ellipse on the new layer is selected, Right-mouse-click and choose 「stroke」. Apply the settlings below for the stroke effect:

16. Press Ctrl + T to free transform, and then right-mouse-click >> Prospective. Try to distort the round layer you have to it would look like the line is surrounding or flowing around the girl.

17. Using the Eraser tool with big soft edge, remove the 「farther」 part of the round, behind her head, like this:

18. While this layer is selected, go to Layer >> Layer styles >> Outter glow and apply the following glow settlings:

19. Duplicate the layer a several times and each time transform the round using the prospective settlings, so that the circles chaotically surround the main figure's body.

20. Remember to leave the 「front」 part of the circle visible and erase the 「back」 part of it. This is more or less what you should have by now:

21. Flatten the Layer.
22. Go to Image >> Adjustments >> Levels and apply the following settlings to give the image an overall bluish hue:

23. Duplicate the layer.
24. While the upper layer is selected (and your background colour in the palette is set to white), go to Filter >> Distort >> Diffuse Glow and apply these glow settings.

25. Reduce the opacity of the 「glowing layer」 to 20% (or less, depends on your image).
26. Flatten the layer again to merge both layers into one.

27. Using some star brushes (download free on deviant Art resources page), apply the stars chaotically around and allover the glowing cycles.

28. Select the background layer (the artwork, not the stars) and to to Renters >> Lightening effect, apply the following spot light effect twice.

29. Get back to Stars layer, and go to Layer >> Layer Styles >> Outer Glow, and add the following glow using white #ffffff colour.

30. Duplicate the stars layer.
31. Go to Filter >> Blur >> Radial Blur and apply these settings.

You may choose to reduce the opacity of this layer if you feel the rounded blurred effect is too strong. That's it, your artwork is ready:

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