BlitZ version of JANE's GIMP journey

[Moosh]

After following JANEs learning diary I thought it could be helpful for some if I was to create tutorials for Photoshop on how to make the same brilliant things.



So I thought I'd start with the 'digital bokeh' effect.

Here's what we'll be making!



1. Create a new document in Photoshop, I used 1920x1200 pixels so make it big. Fill the background layer with a very dark grey, not black. If you fill it with black the effect won't work.

2. Press the eye on the background layer to hide it. Create a new layer. 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.



3. Select the ellipse by ctrl+clicking on the layers picture, and go to Edit>Define Brush. Name it, and now we have a new brush! A cool trick on its own.

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. Change the value to 100%. After that, select the Shape Dynamics, then Scattering and Other dynamics. For the values use the image below.



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 45º. The colors I used are: Yellow (#00085), Cyan (#1bdaeb), Purple (#9b3b81), Orange (#d27e34).

6. Let's create a new Folder in our Layer Palette 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 brush size.

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

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.

9. Create another layer and repeat the previous step, this time however use a much smaller brush.

And there you have it, a bokeh style wallpaper in Photoshop!


Follow this link for a wallpaper version: Link


Also here's some cool and simple text effects;

Glowing text...



1. Type something... Then in the blending options put these settings in;



2. Make a new layer. Select the gradient tool and make a gradient of bright colours in the gradients settings.

3. Select the text by ctrl-clicking on the text layer picture, then on the blank layer apply the gradient you made into the selection.

4. Set the gradient layer to screen, and go to Filter>Blur>Gaussian Blur, and set the radius to 9px

[BFM_JANE]

Photoshop stuff looks a lot better. And I did take that image for my background. Navy's tiger is out, Blitz's bokehs are in!

Nice job on the tutorials though. I don't have PS, but I like to see how this stuff is done, and maybe we'll get some ideas.

Keep 'em coming!

[Moosh]

Here's another effect that can make a simple wallpaper, and some cool glowy effects in sig's if used correctly. I call this the chrome lens flare....

This is my finished product and what we will hopefully be making



1. Create a new document in Photoshop, I used 1920x1080 pixels (being my screen resolution).

2. Select the gradient tool, and make a pretty simple custom gradient going from black to a colour (by clicking on the gradient bar in the top left and choosing your colours). Then set your gradient to radial and apply it to the background layer from the middle outwards. (with the black on the outside and colour inside)

3. Make a new layer and fill it with black. Then go to Filters>Render>Lens Flare and apply a few of these lens flares to the layer. Play around with brightness and the different types as well.

4. Now on the layer with the lens flares go to Filters>Sketch>Chrome, and use 10 Detail and 0 Smoothness for the settings, and apply.

5. Play around with the blending modes for the Lens Flare layer, I think Color Dodge, Linear Dodge, and Overlay look best for this tutorial.

6. Now it should be starting to look pretty good. You can try making more Lens flare layers and erasing parts until your happy with it.

7. Optional: Make a new layer and set it to hue, and brush colours over the image to make a it a bit more interesting, also lower the opacity of this layer so it's not overly bright.

Here's my wallpaper version; For some reason Photobucket keeps resizing the wallpaper and making it tiny

[gamepanther]

That is SWEET!