Welcome to the In second 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)

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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:

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)

Continue and close this work path:

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

and here is the effect so far:

Step 3

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

Apply the following Gradient Overlay option to this layer:

and here is the effect so far:

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:

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)

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

Scattering

Other Dynamics

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:

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

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!

Welcome to the In second 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 create this glowing  Floral Pattern in Photoshop. This effect looks cool but the steps are in fact very simple, great for beginners :)

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

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You will need the following stock to complete this tutorial:

Floral Brushset (Pick one from the list)

Cloud Brushset

Ok let’s get started!

Step 1

Create a new document sized 600px * 600px, fill the background with black colour. Create a new layer called “Cloud” with around 40% opacity, use the cloud brush you downloaded, and paint some cloud onto it:

Create a new layer called “background light”,  grab a big soft brush with white colour, and paint as shown below:

As you can see, by doing so you immediately created a nice background to work on.

Step 2

Create a new layer called “floral pattern”, use the brush you downloaded, paint a floral pattern onto it:

Apply the following layer blending options to this layer:

Drop Shadow

Bevel and Emboss

and you can see now we created some light and shadow effect for the floral pattern:

Step 3

Now we can add a glowing effect to the floral pattern. To do this, simply duplicate the orginal floral layer once, apply the following Gaussian Blur settings to it:

and you will see a glowing edge appear around the floral pattern:

Step 4

Now let’s add some colour to the image. The Color Balance image adjustment layer will do the job. Personally I think it’s a quick and easy way to add colour to an image, without having to use brush and the colour picker.

I chose a golden colour mix: (Settings as shown below)

and you will have the following effect:

Please note that there is no need to use the exact same colour as I used, you’re free the experiment any colour scheme you prefer.

Step 5

Now let’s flatten the image (save a layered copy before you do so). Duplicate the background layer, and apply the following Smart Sharpen filter to it:

As you can, we now have a darkened edge around the floral pattern, also the overall image becomes more crispy and detailed:

Now let’s get on with the bokeh creation. We can do this with brush dynamics (F5).

Create a new layer called “bokeh” on top of all previous layers, grab a around brush with 90% hardness, apply the following brush settings to it:

Shape Dynamics

Scattering

Transfer (Other Dynamics)

Tick the Airbrush and Smoothing option:

and you will have the following effect:

Step 6

Duplicate the bokeh layer once, and apply the following Smart Sharpen Filter Settings to the duplicated layer:

Drop the opacity of the duplicated layer to around 80%, you will see now we have a highlighted edge appear around the bokeh:

Note: I personally prefer using Smart Sharpen filter to add the edge, other than using the “Stroke” layer blending option. The former produces a clearer, more detailed result in my opinion.

Create a new layer on top of all previous layer called “highlight”, set the layer blending mode to “soft light”, and grab a soft white brush, do a few single-clicks around the floral pattern as shown below:

Finally, add a levels adjustment layer on top, with the following settings: (this will alter the contrast and give the image more depth)

Mask on the levels adjustment layer:

and you will have the following final effect:

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!

In this tutorial, I will show you the steps I took to create this Awesome Freestyle Artwork via Mixing Shapes and Dirt Texture in Photoshop. This is an intermediate level tutorial and some steps can be tricky, but why not have a go :) ?

Alogn the way, I will show some retouch techniques, the use custom brush and the make of some nice abstract lines and shapes, plus lighting effect skills.

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

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

Model

Dirt Brush

Step 1

Create a new doucment sized 880px * 1200px, leave the background color as White. Create a new layer called “texture”, load the dirt brush into Photoshop and use it to paint some texture on it: (set the brush opacity to around 40%)

One thing you need to remember is when you paint this texture layer, try to use a combination of different brushes in the set, and experiement with different brush sizes as you go:

Once you finish the painting, duplicate this texture layer once and use the free transform tool to perspective it as shown below:

Reduce the layer opacity of this layer to around 50%, you will have the following effect:

Step 2

Load the model image into Photoshop, cut out the girl and paste it onto our canvas, name this new layer as “Model”:

Add the following two adjustment layer to the model layer: (make sure to tick the “use previous layer as clipping mask” option when adding them)

Levels:

Layer mask on levels adjustment layer:

Curves:

Layer mask on Curves adjustment layer:

Add a new clipping mask layer for the model layer, grab a soft white brush and paint to the areas as shown below:

Change the blending mode of this new clipping mask layer to “Soft Light”, and you will have the following effect:

I feel the hair of the model need to brighten up a bit, so I created aonther clipping mask layer and used a small white brush with 60% – 70% hardness to paint some white lines on the hair:

Change the blending mode to “Overlay” for this hair painting layer, reduce the layer opacity to around 80%, you will have the following effect:

and here is the overall effect so far:

Step 3

Create a new layer called “Curvy Line” and use the Pen Tool to draw a path as shown below:

Choose a 13px, 100% hardness brush:

Stroke the Path with this brush:

Make sure you tick the “Simulate Pressure” setting:

and you will have the following effect:

Duplicate the curvy line layer a few times, resize and rotate those layers, and position them as shown below:

Step 4

Now let’s get on with the curvy line creation. For tutorial purpose, I made a new document in Photoshop.

Create a new layer and use the Rectangular Marquee tool to draw a seletion as shown below:

Fill the selection with a colour of your choice:

hit Ctrl + T and right-click on the rectangle, choose “Distort”:

Then Hold the Alt key and Drag the bottm right corner of the rectangle to distort it as shown below:

Then duplicate this layer a few times, rotate and resize each layer as shown below: (use colour balance and hue adjustment tool for colour variation)

Then merge the duplicated layer together:

Hit Ctrl + T and right-click on the shapes, choose “Warp” option:

Warp the shapes as shown below:

That’s it, you can use those warped shapes in your image. You can choose you own colour and size, no need to following the exact colour in my image:

Apply the shapes in different location will add depths and variety for your image:

Step 5

This step is optional. I personally feel like adding a bit more depth and variety to the image by have a “shadow” copy of the girl on the canvas somewhere.

Create a new layer called “Girl Shadow” just below the model layer, then load the selection of the model layer and fill the selection with Gray colour:

Resize this layer to a very small scale, flip it horizontally and position it as shown below: (erase the top right part of the girl so it blends into the background)

I added a new layer called “shadow” with “Soft light” blending mode, and use a soft black brush to paint some shadow on the foot area:

Optional: add some more abstract lines around the canvas with Pen Tool Strokes for more variety:

Now we can add some overall shadows and highlights on the image by create a new layer on top of all previous layers, use a soft brush with black or white colour, painting on the new layer as shown below:

and here is the effect so far:

Step 6

Now we can apply some final touches to the image. Flatten the image (save a layered copy before you do so), then duplicate the background layer once, apply the following Smart Sharpen filter to the duplicated layer:

We can also add some lighting effect to the image by duplicate the background layer once more, and apply the Angled Strokes filter to it, with the settings below:

Reduce the layer opacity of this angled strokes layer to around 40%, you will see now we have some really nice lighting effect as shown below:

On left leg:

Around the chest area:

I also add a color balance adjustment layer to image with the following settings:

and you will have the following final effect:

OK that’s it for this tutorial! Hope you enjoy it and find it useful and inspirational. If you have any question, drop a comment below and I will try my best to help you out.

Cheers and have a nice day!

After some thoughts about future articles/tutorials on PSD Vault, I decided to start a new series: Mini PS tutorial. In this series, I will include some very simple Photoshop tutorials designed for Photoshop beginners. The aim of those mini-tutorials are simple: to familiarise you with a variety of Photoshop tools and show you how to combine them to produce great effect for your design.

The effect are mostly abstract, and you can apply them to a wide range of design works you might have, to spice things up :)

In this first volume of Photoshop Mini tutorial series, I will show you the steps I took to create this Simple Abstract Shining Wave Line in Photoshop in just 5 steps. Have a try!

Here is a preview of the final effect we will be creating:

Alternative version:

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No Stock image is required for this tutorial. This tutorial is best for Photoshop CS2 or +.

Ok let’s get started!

Step 1

Create a new document sized 470px * 330px, fill the background with black color. Create a new layer called “baseline” and grab a big white brush with 0% hardness, do a single-click on this new layer:

Hit Ctrl + T and enable the free tranform tool:

Compress this dot with the free transform tool, make sure you hold the “Alt” key while drag the top edge:

Reduce the layer opacity of this baseline layer to around 60%, you will have the following effect:

Step 2

Duplicate this baseline layer once. On the duplicated layer, again we use the free-tranform tool to scale it to a smaller size, and position it to the place as shown below:

Grab a smaller soft white brush, and do a few single-clicks along the baseline for some variety:

Step 3

Ok let’s make a new brushset. Hit “F5″ and bring up the brush window, apply the following brush presets:

Shape Dynamics

Other dynamics:

Make sure to tick the “airbrush”, “smoothing” and “protect texture” settings. Save the brushset if you wish.

Then use the Pen Tool, draw a work path as shown below:

Hit “Ctrl + Shift + N” and create a new layer called “abstract lines”, right-click and choose “Stroke Path”:

Make sure you tick the “Simulate Pressure” on the new window:

and here is the effect you will have:

Step 4

On this abstract line layer, apply the following “Motion Blur” settings:

Hit “Ctrl + F” and re-apply this blur effect a few more times, and you will have following effect:

Use the free transform tool to scale it as shown below:

For variety, we can duplicate this abstract line layer a few more times, and scatter them around the baseline:

We can also add some highlights to the abstract line by duplicate the baseline layer a few times, and drag the duplicated layers to the top, resize each of them to smaller sizes and rotate them 90 degree clockwise: (increase the opacity to around 90% for the duplicated layers)

Step 5

To fine-tune the image, we can add the following adjustment layers to the image:

Curves

Color Balance

Levels

To add some particle effect around the lines, we can use the smart sharpen filter: (settings shown below, make sure you flatten the layers first)

and this is the final effect I have for this tutorial:

You can also experiment different colour scheme, here is an alternative version for this tutorial:

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!

In this tutorial, I will show the processes I took to create this cool-looking, ancient cracked sword in Photoshop.  Personally I think the steps aren’t hard to follow and the end result looks good, Have a go :)

The technique I would like to emphasise in this tutorial is how you can use the cloud filter to add contrast to object, and the important of using the correct blending mode for layers to maximise the effect.

You will also see by choosing a great quality texture, you can easily add extra effect to your design with mimimum effort.

Here is a preview of the final image: (click to enlarge)

PSD File Download

You can download the PSD File for this tutorial via the VIP Members Area for only $4.95/Month (or less)! You will not only get this PSD File, but also 40+ other PSD Files + Extra Goodies + Exclusive Photoshop tutorial there. Signup now and get exclusive :) Find out more about the VIP Members Areas

Ok let’s get started!

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

Sword

Crack Texture

Step 1

Create a new document sized 1000px * 1300px, fill the background layer with black color. Load the “Sword” texture into Photoshop and cut out the sword using whatever method you prefer (I used the magic wand here, set tolerance to 32px), then paste it onto our canvas, as shown below:

You can choose a different angle for the sword if you like, totally up to you. The steps below will still apply.

Name this layer as “sword”. On this layer, apply the following “Reduce Noise” settings to it:

and you will see by doing so, we managed to get a few more details out of the sword image, as shown below:

Load the selection of the sword layer by holding down Ctrl key + left-click the thumbnail image of the sword layer on the layer palette. Then hit Ctrl + Alt + R to bring up the Refine Edge tool, apply the following settings:

and you will have the following effect for the selection:

Now we’re ready for the cloud rendering in the next step.

Step 2

Create a new layer called “cloud 1″ on top of the “sword” layer, maintain the selection we did in previous step, render some cloud within the selection, as shown below: (set back and foreground colour to be black and white)

Now hit Ctrl + L and bring up the Levels adjustment tool, apply the following settings to it:

Now the settings for Levels might differ slightly depending on the cloud render outcome, however the ultimate goal is to bring more contrast to the cloud so it gives us more lighting variation, as shown below:

Change the blending mode of the cloud layer to “Color Dodge”, you will have the following effect:

Now here is the interest part of the tutorial – we’re going to max-out the effect by playing with the cloud layer.

Duplicate the cloud layer a few times, apply following layer blending mode, opacity and layer mask to each layer:

and you will have the following effect:

You can see now we have some very dynamic contrast placed on the sword. They will look good when we apply the crack texture later on in the tutorial.

Step 3

Go back to the background layer, grab a big soft round brush with a 30% flow and opacity settings, do a few single clicks as shown below:

You will see now we light up the background a bit – however not too much. This effect will reflect when we add the crack texture later on in the tutorial.

I decide to add some effect on the bottom of the sword. So I duplicate the original cloud layer once, change the blending mode to “Normal” and drag it below the sword layer and above the background layer, use the Free Transform tool to resize it to a small size, position it as shown below:

Name this layer as “light”, duplicate it a few times, and position them as shown below:

and here is the effect so far:

Step 4

We can now add the crack texture onto the sword. Load the Crack Texture into Photoshop, select a portion of it with the Lasso tool (40px feather), copy and paste it onto the canvas and put it on top of all previous layers, name the layer as “crack”:

Make sure you resize the layer to roughly the size of the sword, as shown below:

Change the blending mode of the crack layer to be “color dodge”. Duplicate the crack layer a few times, position each duplicated layer as shown below:

Maintain the blending mode for all crack texture layers to be “color dodge”, apply layer mask according to the screenshot above.

For the top crack texture layer, add the following levels adjustment layer to it (with clipping mask optin enabled):

You will have the following effect:

Step 5

Now we can add some image adjustments layers to fine-tune the effect. I have the following two adjustment layers on top of all layers:

Color Balance

Curves

and you will have the following effect:

That’s it pretty much it! For the final effect I added some brushwork on the top, here is my end result: (click to enlarge)

That’s all for this tutorial! I hope this can give you more ideas about the use of layer blending, cloud filter and applying textures in Photoshop. Hopefully you will find those steps in the tutorial useful and the end result inspiratinal :)

Till next time, have a great day!

In this tutorial, I will show you the steps I took to create this really cool, Mystical Golden Sphere in Photoshop. The steps are in fact pretty simple and the outcome looks great in my opinion, have a try :)

We will be using some drawing techniques, plus customer brushsets and filter effects along the way, plus I will show you a clever use of Photoshop brush to create special effect around the sphere.

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

PSD File Download

You can download the PSD File for this tutorial via the VIP Members Area for only $4.95/Month (or less)! You will not only get this PSD File, but also 40+ other PSD Files + Extra Goodies + Exclusive Photoshop tutorial there. Signup now and get exclusive :) Find out more about the VIP Members Areas

Ok let’s get started!

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

Abstract Brushset 1

Abstract Brushset 2

Step 1

Create a new document sized 800 * 800px, fill the background with black colour. Create a new layer called “bottom light” and use a 250px soft round brush with white colour, do a single click in the centre of the canvas, then resize it  (Ctrl + T) to a very thin shape as shown below:

Grab the eclipse tool (U key) from the toolbox, create a new layer called “sphere” and draw a circle on top of the light, as shown below:

Apply the following layer blending options to this sphere layer:

Drop Shadow

Inner Shadow

Gradient Overlay

and you will have the following effect:

Step 2

Create a new layer on top of the “sphere” layer and use the eclipse tool to draw another oval shape to the top of the sphere. Name this layer as “highlight top” and change the blending mode to “overlay”, drop the opacity to around 40%.

You will have the following effect:

Duplicate this highlight layer once and apply the following Gaussian Blur settings to the duplicated layer:

change the blending mode of this duplicated layer to “soft light”, you will have the following effect:

Step 3

Now let’s add some irregular lighting effect to the sphere. Create a new layer just above the sphere layer, use a soft white round brush to so a few single click around the sphere, set the blending mode to “soft light”.

Hint: make sure to paint some light on the bottom of the sphere, this will help adding more depth into the image.

The following effect is what I have so far: (the light strip on the right was done using the free tranform tool + a soft white round brush on a new layer with “normal” blending mode:)

Create a new “Shadow” layer on top of the “bottom light” (first layer) and use the same method as described in step 1 except using black colour instead of white, do a single click and resize it into the thin shape.

Change the blending mode of the shadow layer to “overlay”, you will have the following effect:

Step 4

Now we can add some effect around the sphere to make it look mysterious. Use the abstract brushset 1 we downloaded, choose any one of them and reduce its brush size to a smaller size, paint around the sphere as shown below:

Create another new layer and use the Abstract brushset 2 to paint some patterns on top of the sphere, as shown below:

(Hint: use the Free Tranform tool to distort, warp the new layer to create variations)

Here is what I have so far:

Add a new texture layer just above the background layer, and use the same brushset as we used just now, but this time with its orginal size, paint some patterns on the lower half of the canvas, as shown below:

Make sure you mix different brushset and set the opacity and flow to both around 50%.

Step 5

Now let’s add the golden colour on the sphere. The trick here to add a Color Balance adjustment layer just above the original “Sphere” layer, with the following settings:

and you will have the following effect:

add the following Curves adjustment layer on top of all layers:

and you will have the following effect:

Step 6

Now we can do some final touches to the image. Firstly let’s flatten the image, duplicate the background layer once and apply the following Radial Blur settings to the duplicated layer:

Change the blending mode to “Screen” and you will have the following effect:

Now we don’t really want to the whole image to be blurred, so we can add a layer mask as shown below to hide some parts:

Also apply the following Smart Sharpen settings to the background layer:

and you will have the following final effect: (click to enlarge)

That’s it for this tutorial! Of course you can further enhance the effect and try out more colour schemes and filter effects, but that’s totally up to you.

Hope you enjoy it and find it useful! Until next time, have a great day!