Mini PS Tutorial Series Vol.3 – Create Elegant Curvy Lines with Pen Tool in Photoshop

Mini PS Tutorial Series Vol.3 – Create Elegant Curvy Lines with Pen Tool in Photoshop

Posted on August 29th, 2010 under Abstracts,Basics

Learn how to create 3D looking text in Adobe Photoshop with SCMAD tutorials. Our scsa tutorial and SCWCD guide covers all the essential topics that a web designer must go through.

Welcome to the 3rd volume of Photoshop Mini tutorial series, which is a series I started specifically for Photoshop beginner – to help them understand various aspect of Photoshop by designing something simple but cool.

In the tutorial, I will show you the steps I took to Elegant Curvy Lines with Pen Tool in Photoshop. You can use this skill in lots of designs such as banners, photo effects and even making a wallpaper. The steps are really simple, have a try :)

Here is a preview of the final effect for this tutorial: (click to enlarge)

mini tut curve lines 500x300 Mini PS Tutorial Series Vol.3 – Create Elegant Curvy Lines with Pen Tool in Photoshop

mini tut curve lines 3 500x300 Mini PS Tutorial Series Vol.3 – Create Elegant Curvy Lines with Pen Tool in Photoshop

mini tut curve lines 2 500x300 Mini PS Tutorial Series Vol.3 – Create Elegant Curvy Lines with Pen Tool in Photoshop

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vip sign up 250 Mini PS Tutorial Series Vol.3 – Create Elegant Curvy Lines with Pen Tool in Photoshop

OK let’s get started!

Step 1

Create a new document sized 1000px * 600px, press “G” and use the gradient fill tool, select the “Radial Gradient” fill option from the option bar, fill the background layer as shown below:

1 fill 499x299 Mini PS Tutorial Series Vol.3 – Create Elegant Curvy Lines with Pen Tool in Photoshop

Step 2

Now create a new layer called “curves” and use the Pen Tool to create a work path as shown below: (Before you make the path, make sure you choose the “Path” option on the option bar)

2 path 500x163 Mini PS Tutorial Series Vol.3 – Create Elegant Curvy Lines with Pen Tool in Photoshop

2 click drag 500x263 Mini PS Tutorial Series Vol.3 – Create Elegant Curvy Lines with Pen Tool in Photoshop

Continue and close this work path:

2 close path 500x206 Mini PS Tutorial Series Vol.3 – Create Elegant Curvy Lines with Pen Tool in Photoshop

With the Pen Tool selected, right-click inside the closed path and choose “Fill Path” and fill the path with white colour:

2 fill path 500x340 Mini PS Tutorial Series Vol.3 – Create Elegant Curvy Lines with Pen Tool in Photoshop

and here is the effect so far:

2 after fill 500x176 Mini PS Tutorial Series Vol.3 – Create Elegant Curvy Lines with Pen Tool in Photoshop

Step 3

Change the blending mode of this curve layer to “Soft Liight”:

3 soft light general 500x350 Mini PS Tutorial Series Vol.3 – Create Elegant Curvy Lines with Pen Tool in Photoshop

Apply the following Gradient Overlay option to this layer:

3 grad overlay 500x350 Mini PS Tutorial Series Vol.3 – Create Elegant Curvy Lines with Pen Tool in Photoshop

and here is the effect so far:

3 effect3 499x287 Mini PS Tutorial Series Vol.3 – Create Elegant Curvy Lines with Pen Tool in Photoshop

Step 4

Now we can add a few more lines to the image. There are two ways to do it: one is to duplicate the original curve line layer and adjust the position, the other method is to use this opportunity to have another practice with the Pen Tool. For this tutorial, we will be using the second method.

Create a new layer and use the Pen Tool to create another work path, then hold down the Ctrl Key, and click and drag the Control Point as shown below to alter the shape of the path:

4 drag path 500x196 Mini PS Tutorial Series Vol.3 – Create Elegant Curvy Lines with Pen Tool in Photoshop

Fill the path using the same method as described in previous step, and adjust the position for each layer as shown below: (also adjust the layer opacity so they have a fade-in effect)

4 dup1 500x235 Mini PS Tutorial Series Vol.3 – Create Elegant Curvy Lines with Pen Tool in Photoshop

Finally we can add some random bokeh effect to spice up the image. To do this, grab a round, hard brush and press F5 to bring up the brush options, apply the following settings:

Shape Dynamics

4 shape dyn Mini PS Tutorial Series Vol.3 – Create Elegant Curvy Lines with Pen Tool in Photoshop

Scattering

4 scattering Mini PS Tutorial Series Vol.3 – Create Elegant Curvy Lines with Pen Tool in Photoshop

Other Dynamics

4 other Mini PS Tutorial Series Vol.3 – Create Elegant Curvy Lines with Pen Tool in Photoshop

and make sure you tick the “Airbrush”, “Smoothing”, “Protect Texture” options.

Then simply create a new layer on top of all previous layers, set the blending mode to “Soft light” and use this brush to paint over it:

mini tut curve lines 500x300 Mini PS Tutorial Series Vol.3 – Create Elegant Curvy Lines with Pen Tool in Photoshop

You can alter the background layer colour to be any colour you like, and those curves we created will still work:

mini tut curve lines 3 500x300 Mini PS Tutorial Series Vol.3 – Create Elegant Curvy Lines with Pen Tool in Photoshop

mini tut curve lines 2 500x300 Mini PS Tutorial Series Vol.3 – Create Elegant Curvy Lines with Pen Tool in Photoshop

That’s it for this beginner-level mini Photoshop tutorial! Hope you enjoy it and find it useful. Until next time, have a great day!

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  • http://Website mentol

    Cool tut. I lke it. Thank you for this

  • http://Website Assem

    Cool!

  • http://none kevin

    Soo Cool like it!! =)

  • http://click9.net vivianjust

    this is cool , like it

  • http://2oolbox.com jDesai

    Nice and precise tut for those who’re just getting acquainted with PS. Pen tool is undoubtably the trickiest of all. Needs a bit of practice.

  • http://Website mamata

    stuck in step 3
    grr and i am such a noob
    after Apply the following Gradient Overlay option to this layer , how to
    make the pen tool line disappear?

  • http://Website caporaldesabana

    O.K. sus explicaciones para poder seguir el tutorial. gracias

  • http://Website Sam

    Thanks……this really simplifies things a lot. I couldn’t replicate the bubbles, but the tutorial really taught me a lot today.

  • http://Website Rosa

    When creating the second layer…. do I create a new layer o layer from background?

    thanks!