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[taikara]

Since Magic posted a nifty basic brushed background effect, I thought I'd kick it up a notch Emeril-style and share some advanced methods that use his tutorial as a base.

Using this tutorial, you should be able to achieve a distorted glowy effect, like this:



Software used: Photoshop 7.0

Note: I have provided my own results in links for almost every step to give a general idea of how it should look.

Step 1:

Open a new file. Use a size larger than what the background is intended for. I typically use 800x800, but it does not need to be that big - it just gives options.



Step 2:

Follow Magic's Background Tutorial until you come up with a nice blend of black and white. The "rougher" it ends up looking, the better, you'll end up smoothing it out.

Don't color it yet.

When you're done, if you've used layers, go to:

Layers > Flatten Image

Mine turned out like this:



Step 3:

Go to Filter > Distort > Polar Coordinates

and set it to Polar to Rectangular, like so:



My Result

Step 4:

While the newly distorted layer is selected, press Ctrl+J three times. This will copy the layer.

To do it manually, go to Layer > Duplicate Layer and repeat three times.

To make the next steps less confusing, make all of the layers invisible except for the bottom one, by clicking on the eye icon next to the layer in the Layers tab menu:



Step 5:

Click on the next layer up, making it visible again.

Go to Filters > Distort > Shear and drag the line until it looks something like this (and make sure that Wrap Around is checked):



My Result

Step 6:

Click on the next layer up, making it visible again.

Repeat Step 5, but change the shape of the waves by messing with the line again.

My Result

Step 7:

Click on the next layer up, you got it... making it visible again.

Go to Filters > Distort > Wave and make your settings like so:



My Result

Step 8:

Starting at the top layer, and by clicking the Blending drop down menu found under the Layers tab:



and set your Blending Modes like so:

Waved layer: Screen

Sheared layers: Multiply

Polar Coordinated layer: Leave Normal

Step 9:

Select the bottom layer and press Ctrl+U. This will bring up the Hue/Saturation menu. To pull up this menu without hot-keys, go to Image > Adjustments > Hue/Saturation. Check the Colorize option like so:



Fiddle with the settings until you have something that pleases you.

Repeat this step for all remaining layers.

My Results:

Polar Coordinate - Color
Shear 1 - Color
Shear 2 - Color
Wave - Color

Step 10:

Sit back and enjoy your new background:



Note: You may need to change blending modes to achieve a nice effect with the colors you choose... just switch from Screen to Multiply as desired.

Once you're done, you can cut out a part of the background for a siggie or banner.


Whee!