How do you do this?

[AnneWynne]

Originally Posted by jbm1991

I had a bash at making some swishy bits there. They are by no means perfect but saying that i can't say i've ever made any before so its not too bad for a first attempt I might tweak them a bit a later date.

What d'you think?

Swishy bits are looking good....how did you do them (I like all three)?

Thanks,
Anne

[jbm1991]

Glad you like them

To create the first set of swishes i simply made a black background on one layer. On the layer above i used the Pen tool to make this shape >>> ~ <<< except i made it diagonal, obviously it was also a lot bigger, and to create the shape i started with the left most point then worked along the top of the shape until the right most point, then i went back along underneath (about 1/2 and inch at its widest point) the top line keeping the same shape and joined back up to the left most point. I then used Edit>>Fill and filled it with my chosen colour. I then just made 3 copies of this shape, then used the "wave" and "twirl" filters to make 3 swishy shapes. I dropped the opacities of these 3 swishes a lot and copied them, and moved them around and dropped the opacity more. and it eventually ended up looking like that.

To create the second set of swishes I made a 1000x1000 px canvas and filled the background in black. Then i created a new layer and made an empty circle selection in the middle. I then feathered this selection by 50px. I then used the gradient tool with 3 colors (from left to right: white, light green, dark green) to fill this circle with the white spot being in the middle. I then used the transform tool to squash this circle so that it was about 1/4 of its original height. I did not change the width. I then copied and pasted it several times on to new layers, and proceeded to apply variations of the "wave" and "twirl" filters to each layer, then changed the layer blending modes and opacities until it ended up looking how it did.
On the black background later i added the green bit to liven things up a touch.

To create the 3rd and final set of swishes, the most complicated of the 3 and by far the most resource demanding (the .psd was over 460mb at one point and just about crippled my computer(admittedly my computer is quite old however, bring on the new birthday laptop ) ) I first created a canvas 8 inches by 8 inches, with a 300 pixels per inch resolution.
Fill the background layer black, and create a new blank layer which you should also fill in black. On the top black layer go to "filter>>render>>lens flare" and then in the preview window you will see that if you click around the circles of the lens flare move closer or further away from each other. Your aim is to now line all of these lens flare circles up in the preview window so it looks a bit like a sun (brightness 100%, 50-300mm zoom). When your done click OK. You'll see a circle with several different coloured rings. Then use free transform and squash the lens flare to 1/4 of its original height. Then duplicate the layer and use the free transform tool again and rotate the new lens flare so that it is vertical. Then change the vertical lens flare (top layer) blending mode to "lighten". At this point make sure both your lens flares are central and thus forming a cross type shape in the middle of the your canvas. Now go back to the horizontal lens flare and duplicate the layer again. Move this new layer to the top of all the layers and use the free transform tool to rotate it 45 degrees (underneath the File, Edit, etc bar at the top there is the transform bar which as a box where you can just type in the angle you want to rotate by, it is 3rd from the right). Again change the layer blending mode to lighten. Go back to the horizontal lens flare and duplicate the layer, again move it to the top of the layers and this time rotate it by -45 degrees. Again change the layer blending mode to lighten. The shape you have now should look a bit like a flower with 8 "petals" and a pretty bright center.
You should now have 5 layers, the black background layer and 4 lens flare layers (horizontal, vertical, 45 degrees, -45 degrees). You now must unlock the black background layer, and then go to layer >> Merge visible. So you now have 1 layer with the "flower" on a black background. When you have done this go to Edit >> Free Transform, then in the Free Transform bar at the top, you will see the Width and Height boxes where you can enter in values, there will also be a little button in between them resembling a chain. Click on the chain so that it is "on" and then in the width box change the vale from 100% to a value which enlarges the flower so that the petals are close to the edge of the canvas but still have a little way to go. For me this value was 225%. By clicking the chain earlier, the height box will have also changed to your new % value.
Now go to Filter>>distort>>wave. The settings i used were: Type: Sin, Generators:136, Wavelength: Min 752 max 794, amplitude min 6 max 34, scale 100%, wrap around. You should now have a pattern of stretched and warped lens flares that looks a bit strange, I had 5 mini lensflares in my pattern with a big splodge of a lensflare at the bottom. Duplicate this layer. On the new layer go to filter>>distort>>twirl. And then use an angle of about 330 degrees as you want a nice spiral but you want to keep the bright spots aswell. Then change the blending mode of this layer to "screen". You should now be able to see our swishes slowly emerging.
Now take the new layer and duplicate it (it should have kept its blending mode as screen, if it hasnt, change to to screen) then go to edit>>transform>> and then pick one of the angular rotations or horizontal/vertical flips. Once of you have applied a transformation duplicate THIS layer and do the same thing again with a different angle/flip (again make sure the blending mode is "screen") and basically you can continue to duplicate the layer a with different transformations as many times as you like. You should definately now be able to see the swishyness.
[You don't have to, but at this point i merged all of the layers to take some of the load off my computer which was feeling the strain by this point.]
In the layers toolbar wherever it is on your screen, usually the right, click the button at the bottom which is a black and white circle and then choose "levels". This creates a new adjustment layer. On the levels graph that will pop up i advise you move the black arrow to the right a bit to remove some of the washed out areas and tweak the grey arrow so it all becomes something pleasing, you WONT need to change the white arrow as if you do the picture just becomes completely blown out. when done click OK. Now to colorize our swishy pattern click that black and white circle again and this time click "hue/saturation". In the little window that pops up tick the "colorize" box, then move the hue and saturation sliders around till you find a pleasing color. As you can see i chose quite a rich green colour, but choose whatever takes your fancy. Again when done click OK
If you want you can leave your image like that and be very pleased with yourself
However, for that extra oomph i then did the following. I merged all the visible layers, including the adjustment layers into one layer, so i had my entire green swishy pattern as just one layer and nothing else. I then duplicated my single layer, and flipped my new layer either vertically or horizontally (cant remember which) and changed the layer blending mode to "lighten". It should now look very swishy and dreamy indeed

I then think i also applied a slight levels adjustment just to make the blacks darker and boost the colors a touch, but its personal preference really.

Hope you understood everything there. Do let me know if something appears to be missing.

[AnneWynne]

Way cool....when I have the time later this weekend I will try it. I think the first 2 should be easy enough, but the third will be a challenge. Thanks so much for figuring this out!

Hugs...Anne

[jbm1991]

No problem

Let me know how you get on, and i'm curious to see what results you get.