Create an Abstract Golden Circle with Smoke Brushset in Photoshop

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OK Let’s get started!

To complete this tutorial, you will need the following stocks:

Smoke Brush

Step 1

Create a new document (size doesn’t really matter) with black background. Create a new layer and grab the Elliptical Marquee tool with the following settings:

Hold down the Shift key, and draw a circle shape as shown below:

Reduce the opacity of this layer to around 40%, and here is the effect so far:

Step 2

Now let’s use the smoke brushset to add some textures around the circle. Create a new layer and pick one brush from the set, paint as shown below: (Reduce the brush size to a smaller scale before you paint)

Use the Warp tool to adjust the shape of the smoke texture as shown below:

Use a soft eraser to remove the edge of the smoke texture so it fades into the circle:

Duplicate this smoke texture layer a few times and attach each of those layers around the circle:

Hint: Use the free transform tool to rotate each layer and adjust the shapes as you go.

Merge all these layers of smoke textures together, and duplicate this merged layer a few times. Use the free transform tool to rotate and resize the duplicated layer a few times, in order to add some more effect:

Create a new layer and paint some smoke texture inside the circle, then reduce the layer opacity to around 20%:

Add the following levels adjustment layer on top of all previous layers:

Add the following layer mask on this levels adjustment layer:

Here is the effect so far: (As you can see, by adding this levels adjustment layer, we increase the contrast and depth of the smoke texture)

Step 3

Now let’s add some simple light effect on the circle. Create a new layer on top of all the previous layers, and use a soft white brush to do a single click to the position shown below:

Warp this layer with the warp tool and transform this light dot into a curvy shape as shown below:

As you can see, now we have some highlight on the circle:

Duplicate this light layer a few times to enhance this light effect a bit:

Repeat this process and add some highlights on the top left corner of the circle:

and here is the effect so far:

Step 4

We can add some cloud effect around the circle. To do this, create a new layer and draw a circle selection with the elliptical marquee tool (40px feather), render some cloud with the cloud filter within the selection:

Hit Ctrl + L and apply the following levels adjustment to this cloud layer:

Then use the warp tool to warp the cloud as shown below: (this creates some motions around circle)

and you will have have following effect so far:

Step 5

OK we’re almost done! For some final retouches, we can add the following extra effect to improve the overall result.

I added some smoke texture on top and bottom of the circle for some extra flowing effect:

I also added some particle effect around the circle: (For details steps of creating this particle brush, you can check out Step 3 of this tutorial)

To add some golden colour to the image, I added one Color Balance adjustment layer on top of all layers:

Lastly we can flatten the image, then apply this Reduce Noise filter settings below: (By doing so we can sharpen the effect, and reduce the colour noise for the circle shape)

and here is my final effect for this tutorial: (click to enlarge)