Vista Style Page

Step 1

Before we can actually get started on the lighting effects, we need to create a background for the effect. We can't simply use any background we choose, but rather create an appropriate canvas to begin with. Find a photograph to use as the basic palette for your background. It can be any image really… just make sure it has a lot of lights and darks in it. Alternatively,.

Step 2

From here, we need to apply a very strong Gaussian Blur to our Photograph. Go to Filter > Blur > Gaussian Blur, and bring the slider to something high. You really want to get rid of all the detail in the photo, and have all the colors mesh together. I applied a Gaussian Blur of 75.

Step 3

Now we are going to drastically change our background by adding a Color Balance Adjustment Layer. To create this layer, go to Layer > New Adjustment Layer > Color Balance. A "New Layer" box may pop up, just click Ok through that. Next you'll see 3 different sliders, as well as 3 separate ranges to choose from (Shadows, Midtones, and Highlights). At this point, it's really just about experimenting with the sliders in each range until you find a suitable result. If you're using the photograph I supplied, these were the values I used:

Shadows: -37, -40, 7

Midtones: 15, 62, 0

Highlights: 34, 0, 69

Step 4

That's it for the background. We're done with it. You may choose to edit your Color Balance layer later on (just double click the icon next to it), but otherwise, we can move onto the effect.

To begin, select the Elliptical Marquee Tool from your toolbar. Make a large selection, spanning all the way across your canvas. You may need to move your selection while making it in order to make such a large selection. If you need to do this, hold the spacbar while dragging your mouse (Don't let go of the left mouse button). You should end up with a slightly curved selection that covers at least half the canvas.

Step 5

Create a new Layer (Above the Adjustment Layer, mind you), and grab your Brush tool from the toolbar. Choose the default brush, and then modify the size to something large, such as 200-300, and set the hardness to 0. Choose White as your foreground color.

This part may take some trial and error, but essentially, you are going to brush just the very inside of the selection you just made. Try to brush evenly across the whole selection.

Step 6

Easy enough, huh? Set the blending mode of this layer to Overlay. Deselect everything (Ctrl + D or Select > Deselect). Now, transform this layer so that is is positioned near-vertically along the right side of the canvas. To transform, go to Edit > Free Transform, or Ctrl + T.

Step 7

Repeat steps 5 and 6 once or twice, and use smaller brush sizes (and possibly a larger brush size). Be sure to put each new band of light onto a new layer!

Step 8

Now that we have 2 or 3 different bands of light, we won't need to make anymore of them. Instead, you can Duplicate the layers you've made, and Freely transform them to become new shapes. Remember, Ctrl + T to transform. You can get some interesting effects by holding the Alt, Ctrl, and Shift Keys while dragging the transformation nodes.

Final Step

That's really all there is too it! For add effect, you can add some extra color into it using Color Balance Layers. In order to do this, Select several of your light layers (Ctrl + Shift + Click a Layer in the Layers Panel), and then add a new Color Balance Adjustment layer (Like we did in step 3). The Color Balance Adjustment layer will automatically create a layer mask so that it only gets applied over the selection you made. Just be sure that these new adjustment layers are on top of the lighting layers like i have below

Smoke Type in Photoshop in 10 Steps

Step 1

Open Photoshop and create a new document, I used 1920x1200 pixels. Then apply a gradient, you could fill it with a gradient or apply a Layer Style. I used the layer style, Gradient Overlay. Use Radial for the Style and #07090a - #202b35 for the colors.

Step 2

Add some text in white then go to Filter>Blur>Motion Blur. Use 90° for the Angle, and 40 pixels for the Distance.

Step 3

Now go to Filter>Distort>Wave. use 3 for the Number of Generators, 10 and 346 for the Wavelength, and 5 and 35 for the Amplitude.

Step 4

Go to Filter>Blur>Gaussian Blur. Use 10 pixels for the Radius. Then group the layer and rename the folder's Blend Mode to Color Dodge. You will get a nice light effect.

Step 5

Create a new layer on top of the others and go to Filter>Render>Clouds, make sure you had black and white for the background and foreground colors, then change the Blend Mode to Color Dodge and go to Layer>Layer Mask>Reveal All. With a very soft brush, 0% hardness and black color, hide some areas of the clouds layer. Use the image below for reference.

Step 6

Create a new Folder on the Layers' Palette. Change the folder's Blend Mode to Color Dodge and add a new layer in it. Then use the Smoke Brushes from Qbrushes . Select white for the color and paint over some letters. If you think the brush is not very bright, just click twice.

Step 7

Paint a few more smokes like the image below.

Step 8

Create a new layer beneath the other layers but in front of the Background layer. Fill this layer with black and go to Filter>Texture>Texturizer. Use 100% for the Scaling and 4 for the Relief. For the Texture use Canvas and Light use Top. That will add a nice texture to the image but you will need to change the opacity to 10%.

Step 9

This is a nice new feature in the new Photoshop CS4, actually there's nothing new just the Adjustments palette, but it's very useful because you can edit all the image adjustments like Levels, Hue & Saturation, Curves in that palette. However it just adds a Adjustment Layer, that could be done in the previous versions too.

Anyway, on top of the other layers just add the Invert adjustment. You can go to Layer>New Adjustment Layer>Invert. It will be the same. You will get a very nice effect, like burning paper.

Conclusion

One of the best things in Photoshop is the Brushes Engine and all the things we can create with brushes. With so many excellent sites with Brushes like Brusheezy, Tutorial9, QBrushes, DeviantArt, and PSDTUTS we can find practically all sorts of effects and elements ready to be used in our designs. That means we can focus on ideas rather than figure out ways to recreate things. Also we have 2 very different effects with just one adjustment layer, the Invert. Once again, it's all about playing. I hope you enjoyed this quick tutorial, and let me know if you have any questions.

Awesome Digital Bokeh Effect

Step 1

Create a new document in Photoshop. As usual I will use a nice scree resolution, 1920x1200 pixels. Fill the background layer with a very dark grey, not black. If you fill it with black the effect won't work. The color I used was #262626.

Step 2

Select the Ellipse Tool (U), and create a circle. Use black for the color, and go to Layer>Layer Style>Blending Options. Change the Fill Opacity to 50%. After that select Stroke. Use 10 pixels for the size, Inside for the Position and Black for the color.

Step 3

Select the ellipse and go to Edit>Define Brush. Name your brush and that's done. Now we have a new brush ;)

Step 4

Go to Window>Brushes (F5). The first thing to do in the Brush Engine is to select our new Brush. The size won't matter because you will change that when you use it. The Spacing, however, is very important. Chage the value to 100%. After that, select the Shape Dynamics, then Scattering and Other dynamics. For the values use the image below.

Step 5

Before we start painting our bokehs let's create a new layer and fill it with a colorful gradient. I created a new layer and used the layer styles to do that but feel free to do the way you are used to. My gradient settings are as follows: Blend Mode is Overlay, Opacity is 100%, Style is Linear, and the Angle is 45°. The colors I used are: Yellow (#00085), Cyan (#1bdaeb), Purple (#9b3b81), Orange (#d27e34).

Step 6

Let's create a new Folder in our Layer Palette. Rename the folder to Bokehs and change the Blend Mode to Color Dodge. Then create a new layer, choose white for the color and select the Brush Tool (B). Now just paint some ellipses with our custom brush. For this first layer use a big size, like 500-600px.

Step 7

Go to Filter>Blur>Gaussian Blur. For this first layer use 20 pixels for the Radius.

Step 8

Create another layer and paint more brushes. This time however use a smaller size for the brush. After that go to Filter>Blur>Gaussian Blur. Use 4 pixels for the Radius.

Step 9

Create another layer and repeat the previous step, this time however use a much smaller brush. Apply the Gaussian Blur to this layer as well, but use only 1 pixel for the Radius.

Conclusion

Now just add your logo and that's it. We have a nice wallpaper. The idea of this tutorial was once again to show the power of the Brush Engine. You can try different shapes for this same effect, like hexagons for example. Also you can play a bit with the blurs to add more depth to the final design. Now it's up to you.

Creating a Grunge Rock Poster

Click here to download Guitarist.
Click here to download Vector Speakers.
Click here to download New York Sinatra.

All rights of these resources belong to their respective owners.

Step 1a - Cropping Figures:

Create a document with size 800x600 pixels.

Open up Oh Yeah 3 and crop out the figure using the Filter > Extract tool.

Step 1b - Cropping Figures:

Do the same extraction for the other 2 images, Oh Yeah 4 and 5. You can find these other figures in the gallery of Mjranum Stock. Trust me, you gonna love his stock images.

Position the figures as shown in the diagram.

Step 2 - Setting Up Background:

Create a new layer below the figures and name it as Colorbars.

Using Rectangular Marquee tool, draw several boxes and fill them up with different colors.

The colors used in the example are (starting from the left) #F17D0C, #780606, #000000, #DC0C0C, #EE9D0D, #E58C0C and #F4F424.

Step 3a - Create Displacement Map:

Create a new document with size 800x600.

Select the Paint Bucket tool, set the style to Pattern and choose a default pattern call Textured Tile.

Apply this pattern by clicking onto the Background layer.

Step 3b - Create Displacement Map:

Unlock the Background layer by double-clicking on it and rename it to Texture.

Go to Image > Adjustments > Desaturate. Then follow by Image > Adjustments > Levels. Set the values to be 130, 0, 220.

Save this document as Displace.PSD. You may close this document after that.

Step 4a - Adding Grunge Effect:

Select all the figures and Colorbars layers, go to Edit > Free Transform.

Rotate these images at -15 angle.

Step 4b - Adding Grunge Effect:

Now select the Colorbars layer and go to Filter > Distort > Displace.

Set both Horizontal and Vertical Scale to 20. Choose Stretch to Fit and Repeat Edge Pixels.

Hit OK and choose to open the Displace.PSD saved at Step 3b.

Step 4c - Adding Grunge Effect:

Duplicate a layer for each figure, Oh Yeah 3, 4 and 5.

Select the bottom copy of each figure, go to Filter > Distort > Displace.

Set both Horizontal and Vertical Scale to 20. Choose Stretch to Fit and Repeat Edge Pixels.

Hit OK and choose to open the Displace.PSD saved at Step 3b.

Step 5 - Adding a Footer:

Create a new layer and name it as Footer.

Using the Polygonal Lasso tool, draw a selection similar to the diagram and fill it with #000000.

Step 6 - Adding Burst:

Create a new layer between the Colorbars and figures and name it as Burst. Using Custom Shape tool and choose Registration Target 2 path. Go to Edit > Free Transform Path and resize the shape as shown on the left.

Go to Paths tab and Ctrl+left click on the path to load selection. Go back to Layers tab, select Burst layer and fill it with #000000. set the Blend Mode to Overlay and opacity to 50%.

Step 7 - Adding Speakers:

Open up the Speakers_by_Thegoldenmane.AI in Photoshop.

Set the resolution to 300 and leave the rest as default.

Using the Rectangular Marquee tool, select the speakers you need and drag them as layers above the Burst layer. Go to Edit > Free Transform to rotate and resize them as shown in the diagram.

Step 8 - Adding New York City:

Open up the New York Sinatra AI in Photoshop.

Set the resolution to 300 and leave the rest as default.

Using the Rectangular Marquee tool, select the city and drag it as layer directly below the Footer layer. Go to Edit > Free Transform to rotate and resize it as shown in the diagram.

Step 9 - Adding Texts:

Type in some information at the footer area.

And you are almost done!.

Step 10 - Adjusting the Levels:

I did abit more adjustments to the Levels in general by creating a new Levels Adjustment Layer.

The values are set at 38, 1, 223.

Optional:

You may add another Hue/Saturation Adjustment Layer and make the design more pinkish.

I set the Hue to -80, Saturation to 0 and Lightness to 0.

Optional:

Instead of making it pink, you may wish to turn the whole design into a sephia tone by adding a Hue/Saturation Adjustment Layer.

Check on colorize and set the Hue to 45, Saturation to 30 and Lightness to 0.