discover designing - abstract

8/7/2019 Discover designing - abstract

http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/discover-designing-abstract 1/19

For the document size, start off with a nice large size. The beauty with these kinds of designs (techno /eurocollage...) is that you don’t need to import any bitmap image into Photoshop and you can do them all fromscratch. This also means that you can go ahead and create whatever resolution and image size you want (for greatprint quality 300 dpi @ your desired image size) for a great output.

To start it off on the right foot, grab your ‘Gradient tool’ and choose a gradient. Now put the gradient blendingmode on difference. Changing the blending modes simply allows the gradients light to add up on top of or ‘inaddition’ to each swipe that you create. Do several swipes on the reflected gradient. If you keep them close together at a similar angle you will end up with something close to what is shown here.

Before you know it you’ll have an incredibly amazing result.. If you want you can switch gradient tools (ie. reflectedto linear or diamond...).

Go to Image: Adjustments: De-saturate or Shift Ctrl U. This will strip away the color information which is what youwant for now. You just wanted to create the cool EFX.



Now that you have created some gradient swipes on your background layer for your kicking background, go to adda color adjustment fill layer from the fill/adjustment layer icon at the bottom middle of the layers palette. (Layers >new fill layer > solid color) Choose a bluish color and then scroll through the B boys (blending modes).

You will be using the power of the blending modes a lot in this tutorial. As much as you might want to understand or do understand on a technical level, it’s really their effective application in Photoshop Design that just makes it allworth it. It is important to know that what they are doing is simply mixing the color and light attributes of the selectedlayer with the layer beneath it. The results will greatly vary depending on what situation you’re in.



Now grab your polygonal lasso tool. This is located as an option under the cowboy lasso tool. Click and drag tocreate your own custom polygonal shapes. Go ahead and create something as shown. It’s important to note thatwhen you hold down the Shift key you will get a perfect 180, 90 or 45 degree angle. With the polygonal lasso tool

you must make the end complete by reaching all the way around to get to the original start point where you’ll see asmall circle appear. Do this to close off the selection.

Now that you’ve created a basic shape element, create a new layer in the layers palette by clicking on the new layer icon and then choose a foreground color such as grey or a blue to complement our global color theme. Dark grey isOK because what you’re going to do is change the B boy modes in a few steps from now.

Now that you’ve created the first shape fill layer, drag it to the new layer icon to duplicate it. Now Ctrl click on thelayer icon to select it with the army ants and choose a different foreground color from your picker in the toolbar (or swatch palette, etc.). Here I’ve chosen white...press alt backspace to fill this duplicate layer with the different color.

Now go to your move tool and nudge it a few pixels ‘off’ of the original layer.



What you’re going to do now is link these two layers together in the layers palette. Now go to Layer: Merge Linkedor Ctrl E.

Now these two have become one layer. Now it’s time to start getting creative. Duplicate this new shape layer. Youwill use Ctrl ‘T’ or Edit: Free Transform a lot from now on. Remember that by using free transform you can alter itinto 3-d with distort, skew and perspective by holding down the Ctrl key on any of the ‘handle’s on the boundingbox. You can easily skew or change the perspective of each shape into 3-D. Try dragging a corner handle down asshown; it’s really easy.

Keep creating duplicate layers of the original and start skewing them in different ways with the free transformfunction.

After you’ve done a few of varying sizes, start changing the blending modes. You can also add a drop shadow toeach (I hope you know how by now).



After several copies of this original shape, go ahead and create a new and different shape with your polygonal lassotool. Make sure to create a brand new layer and then choose a color to fill it with. Here I’m using a purple light bluecolor that has something to do with our global color theme.

If your selection is imperfect you can use the ‘subtract from selection’ polygonal lasso tool to select the area that isimperfect and get rid of it from the selection. Drag this layer once you have filled it to the new layer icon and with themove tool, nudge it off again from the original layer. Ctrl click on the new layer icon to select with the army ants andthen choose a lighter version of this color. Alt backspace or Edit: Fill to fill the selection with this color.

Now do your Ctrl E after linking these two layers to merge them together.



Keep doing a bunch of 3-D style transforming with your free transform and Ctrl key. Yes you can do some prettyimpressive 3-D effects within Photoshop...even though it is the 2-D worldwide image editing standard. Duplicateagain and try another slightly different angle and place it where you think it should be.

Notice that I’m creating these in the same direction.

Duplicate this layer several more times and just keep rotating it (Ctrl ‘T’ and placing the cursor outside the boundingbox). Place several of these slightly ‘off’ of each other by moving and rotating..

Here an exclusion blending mode creates a red effect.



Feel free to create some smaller versions (holding shift to scale down with free transform). Remember, be creativeand go with it. Don’t be stingy. After you’ve come up with something like this, create a new layer set by clicking onthe folder icon on the bottom of the layers palette. Now use ‘Thing’ (the hand) in the layers palette to drag each of these layers into the layer set folder.

Now that you have them all in a layer set, you can go ahead and Free Transform the entire layer set as a whole (aswell as change it’s global blending mode).

I’ve duplicated the entire layer set by dragging it to the new layer icon (yes you can do that). Then I’ve changed theblending mode to Color Burn and with the move tool, nudge it over and down to the left.



In a Photoshop Design like this you’ll want to definitely get used to the blending modes. Throughout this wholeprocess I’m always trying out different Blending modes to see what works the best for this design. This is blendingmodes and duplication / transforming of the layer sets. Note I have - one set on Overlay and one set on Color Burn. This creates some interesting light mixtures of depth. (Yes you can duplicate layer sets.)

Create a new blank layer and fill it with black. You need to have some substance on a layer in order to apply afilter - lens flare - 105mm prime (adjust according to your design).

Press OK.



This effect is going to be perfect! Now I don’t have to create as many (if any) additional ‘lines’ in the design becausethey are already extending from the lens flare. In these kinds of designs (this subgenre) there will often be a lightsource...a source of light. You can easily create this with the lens flare (or even brushes...).

Because you have filled a layer with black and put this lens flare on it...umm...it’s filling up or covering the rest of thedesign you may say. No problem! Once again the blending modes to the rescue.

Try out some different blending modes and see what you like best. A lot of your determining factor may be with howdark your background gradient layer actually is. When you use darker blending modes (the first and third set) theywill mix darker values to create an even darker effect all together. With a black fill layer and lens flare you’re almost

always going to want to use one of the lighten blend modes (second set). This will hide the black fill pixels alltogether and let your beautiful lens flare light shine on.

For now I’m using Screen blending mode but might change it later. You can duplicate the layer and bring up Ctrl Uto make a hue/saturation adjustment. I clicked the colorize box and moved the slider to choose a purple. This lookslike another good option but I’m hiding the layer and coming back to it later perhaps.



Grab your circular marquee tool and holding the Shift key, create a very small circle some where on the document.Create a new layer in the layers palette and choose a purple foreground color. Press alt backspace to fill with thiscolor.

Now drag this layer to the new layer icon several different times. Once you have three new duplicates, select eachlayer in the layers palette one at a time and holding the Shift key with the move tool, drag each layer down a varydistance from the original as shown.

Now link all of these layers in the layers palette as shown and go to Layers: Merge Linked or Ctrl E. This makesthem one layer.

Drag this new layer to the new layer icon to create another version. Holding down the shift key, drag this layer of dippy dots down to a color spot on the document and change the blending mode to something light. Note how itinstantly creates a different ‘shade’ of light for each dot? This is because on linear dodge it is mixing the light withthe light values of the layer beneath which you can see is in varying values.



What you’re doing now is just creating some minor additional touchups that help ‘fulfill’ the image. The beauty is justaccented by the attention to detail that you can create. Now add some really small text (also a universal standard inthis genre).

If you want you can rotate the entire canvas (document) under Image: Rotate Canvas...as shown.



Go to your Shapes tools ‘U’. Let’s grab some more custom vector elements that we can synergize into the designwith. The arrow is used a lot in techno-stile circles of design worldwide. In the options bar, keep it on shapes layers,drag to create the vector shape layer.

Now change the blending mode to overlay (or something else you like).



Choose another different vector shape and add it to the design on it’s own shape layer. Remember to use the FreeTransform (or the menu under Edit: Transform...) to create the 3-D effects.

Here I’ve created another arrow and used the Ctrl ‘T’ and then Ctrl key to skew. Doing this adds more depth anddimension and makes it more naturally fit into our design rather than just sitting there like a unopened Christmasgift.

Feel free (of course) to experiment around. Here I’ve created a transformer looking shape and changed theblending modes of these two arrows.

Here I’ve got this bottom shape layer on Screen. You’ll note that on Shape Layers when they are selected theyshow the vector boundary and when you deselect you can see them as they are.



Go back to that tentative purple lens flare layer. Change the Blending Mode to color dodge and lower the opacitydown a bit. You’ll want to do what looks best for your attuned intuition (because that’s exactly what I’m doing).

If you want to try something else - go ahead and create another blank new layer on top of the layers palette. Nowchoose a gradient (something close to the color theme) and swipe it. Here I’ve got the diamond gradient tool andyou can see the effect it leaves. Where did the rest of the design go? You should know by now...B Modes baby!



Find something you like. Note how the layer is disbursed as a diamond gradient, darkening where there is black fillon the layer seeping through.

Let’s add a little more of a deep space effect by grabbing the elliptical (circle) marquee tool.

Hold down the shift key to create a perfect circle. Create a new blank layer. Now that you have this perfect circular selection let’s help it fit more into our design by going to - Select: Transform Selection. This is essentially the sameas free transform except that you can actually just transform a selection itself before you do anything with it (insteadof altering pixels).



Feel free to use your Ctrl key to ‘skew / perspective’ this circular selection. You want to create it into an orbit or interplanetary ring.

Press enter to apply the transformation adjustment to the selection. Because you’ve created a new blank layer andare on it, you can ‘stroke it’. Go to Edit: Stroke and choose 2 pixels with dark blue as the color.



Not too synergistic with the design, but you know too much by now... B Modes First gets the transform where youwant it to and then press enter.

A lighten 'set' effect is in order here like Screen B Mode. This should automatically let it blend in with the lighter elements without looking nearly so harsh. Screen works perfectly to add an additional ‘touch’ to the overall balanceof the design. The beauty is in details such as these that just increase the quality of your work.



Because I can’t stop thinking of ways to keep improving this design (I’ve been trying to stop myself) I found another minor improvement. You see that new gradient layer in the layers palette on soft light it still covered up the lower leftof the design with a darkness so I’ve decided to add a layer mask (my favorite) and do some diamond gradientmasking with black as the foreground color in order to hide some of that darkness and let the light of the layersbeneath shine through (ie. that purple light layer.)



The final look of your design –

discover designing - abstract

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