Sharp's Line sig Tutorial

[Sharp]

This tutorial is available as a PDF. Click here to view or download it

 

So lately I've been getting quite a few requests for a tutorial on how I make these kinds of images.

So I made a tut to show you guys how.

Note: Only plugin needed is Pyrochild's random shape fill.

Step 1: Choosing Your Colors.

The first thing you need to do, is pick which colors your going to use. There's a few different ways you can do this. For the blue one, I chose a color I liked, the blueish color, and flipped the green and blue values. For The pink and orange one, I just picked one of the default colors, orange, and messed with the color sliders until I got something that looked good with it. For the last, I used Adobe Kuler, and picked one of the already made color palettes, and based my colors off of that.

Step 2: Setting Up Your Background.

Start with your default canvas, and paint it black. Add a new layer, and set the secondary color to transparent. Now pick the lighter, or less dominant color, and set the to the primary color, and change the value to 100, if it's not there already. Draw a radial gradient from one of the corners. Add a new layer, and lower the saturation to 30-50ish. Draw another radial gradient from the same corner, and lower the opacity of the layer. Now flatten, and add a new layer.

Step 3: Starting with the lines.

Pick one of your colors, and draw a 1 px line from the corner your gradient started from, to the opposite corner. Right click the middle nubs and make a swervy line. Now Set your secondary color back to white, and fade out the far end with a linear transparent gradient. Add a new layer, and repeat with your second color, then merge it down.

Edit: try to put both of the nubs closer to the bright area then the dark, so you can't see the ends of the lines at all.

Step 4: More lines!

Now increase the line size to 2 px. This is where you start to get creative. Repeat the line process, with increasingly larger and larger line sizes. Don't be afraid to mix it up, and add in more 1px lines etc. etc. Also, try adding in a few lines with colors that are just a bit different than the original color. Make sure your using about the same amount of each color. When you get to 4 or 5 px, Add a new layer and make the rest of the lines on that layer, if you want text in your image. The highest px line I go to is usually 8-10.

Step 5: Circles

Add a new layer. Set your primary and secondary colors to your 2 main colors. Open the random shape fill plugin, and set fill color to primary and secondary. Make sure use transparency and antialias are checked. Set the max and min sizes to 1 and 2, and raise the number fairly high. Now grab the radial gradient and fade them out slightly at the edges. Add a new layer, and do the same, but with higher values, more like 5/10, and lower the amount. Every time you repeat, fade them out more and more, so the closer to the corner you get the bigger the circles are. Repeat again, but with 10ish/20ish for min/max. Try one more time, but lower the amount a lot, and use big circles, and fade it out so only 5-10 are visible (if it is sig sized)

Step 6: The Glow

Add a new layer on top of everything else, and set your primary to white, and your secondary to transparent. Draw a radial gradient from the corner, and reduce the opacity. If necessary, repeat on a new layer with a smaller gradient.

Step 7: The Text

Okay, almost done. Reset your colors to black and white. Now add a new layer in between the small line layer, and the large line layer. Write your text in white, in a fairly large size. Now zoom in a bit. Find where a few of the biggest lines go over, your text, and do a reflected linear gradient, in transparent mode. Line it up with where the lines go, so it makes it look like a shadow.

Step 8: More glow (Optional)

If you like, you can add glow to the lines. Select the line layers and run the glow effect. The values are up to you. Also, you can try duplicating the line layer, run B&W on the lower layer, brightness contrast to 100/100 to make it white, and Gaussian blur and play with opacity.

Congrats, your done!

Post your results everyone!

[Gamer_World14]

Awesome tutorial, I really should try this one out. Like how it turned out.

[DarkShock]

Great tutorial! I will try it out once the random shape fill plug-in is fixed. I'm not sure how long that will take though.

Good job. :wink:

[Gamer_World14]

Great tutorial! I will try it out once the random shape fill plug-in is fixed. I'm not sure how long that will take though.

Wait, that plugin isn't working on the beta now? Darn. Hopefully they can fix that soon. :!:

[DarkShock]

Wait, that plugin isn't working on the beta now? Darn. Hopefully they can fix that soon. :!:

Well actually it's been like that for me. pyro said it won't work on 64-bit operating systems...

[sam567]

dam it! very good tutorial but when I was saving pdn crashed on me GAHHHHHHHHH :evil:

[PancakePaint]

awesome..! I was about to ask you to write a tutorial, then i saw this.

[Sharp]

Darkshock: It's okay if it doesn't have any circles The Zune WP doesn't. :wink:

And thanks for the comments everyone

[WHM Spuff]

Lovely effect, awesome tutorial Sharp 10/10

My attempt at making a desktop for the Mrs using your technique

[Marken]

I gues it could have been worse? 8)

[Sharp]

I like it spuff. Maybe rotate the flower and put it in the white area and mess with blend modes?

It looks good marken, just maybe put the lines a bit closer together or just add more.

[Beta]

Nice :3

[Onemorelevel]

Here's my shot:

[Sharp]

Nice

[Onemorelevel]

Yea, I added some white in there to make it more... Wintery.

[Gamer_World14]

Yea, I added some white in there to make it more... Wintery.

I can also see flip's glassy rectangle outcome in the sig too

[PatrickS91]

Now I know how to find plugins without having to follow links.. xP

Nice and fun! It was simple enough to follow, but needed a little bit of thinking too.. I had to crop the final product to make it a bit more sig-worthy (I would hate to crop or resize it even more ), but it still looked great and now I have a desire to drink hot chocolate with marshmallows.

Click it to see the unaltered product.

[Sharp]

Nice job. I like the colors.

[Lacrymosa]

Here's my try. I added the 5-point stars because circles only...just bores me.

[Leviathans_Fury]

Hey, I was just wondering if someone explain to me the "Linear transparent gradient" because whenever I try it I always end up with the main picture gone and stuff. Could someone explain that step for me? Thanks in advance

[APShredder]

Did you change :AllColorChannels: to :AlphaChannel: while using the gradient tool?

[Leviathans_Fury]

Aaaaaaahhhh!

Thanks you so much.

I love this tutorial, but I thought you had to change the first and secondary colors!

I'll post a result when I'm finished

[Leviathans_Fury]

Heres my result:

I added a bit more glow to the lines

By the way, the actual image size is 1366 x 768

[theonlychad]

here is my rendition of your tutorial sharp. I made a wallpaper pack for my cellphone i will share it if you dont care

Hidden Content:

[Sharp]

Good job fury. Just maybe fade out the edges a little more.

Chad, I didn't make it, feel free to share