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What We’re Making

Before we get started, let’s take a look at the mysterious abstract we’ll be creating.

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Step 1

Open up Photoshop, create a new document. We want this project to be a background in the future so let´s use 1920px wide and 1200px heigh.

Change “layer 1″ to “Ground Layer”. Set the foreground color to black, select the Paint Bucket Tool (B) and click in the window, this will paint the background black.

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Step 2

Create a new layer, name it “Lens Flare”. I know that there are many faces that goes angry when they hear about lens flare. But in my personal opinion, that is superstition. It can be really useful if you use it correctly. Fill this layer with a black color. Press Filter > Render > Lens Flare, use 100% for brightness and select the 50-300mm Zoom. Try to get it as much in the middle as you can.

We also want to add a chrome filter on the flare. Filter > Sketch > Chrome, Detail 10 and Smoothness 2.

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Step 3

All the filters do not repeat exactly the same output, it can be random and that is why we duplicate the layer 6 times. Change the layer “Lens Flare” blend option to Lighten and duplicate it 6 times. This Blend option will take away the black background from the layer and only display the flare it-self.

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Step 4

We want to make it more Rippled and make it more sparkly. Filter > Distort > Ocean Ripple, use a Ripple size and a Ripple Magnitude of about 9. Repeat this on all the layers except the original “Lens Flare” layer and the one just above it. If you press Command + F you can repeat the last filter you added.

Add a glass effect to create a smoother feeling. Filter > Distort > Glass, Distortion 5, Smoothness 3 and 100% Scaling. Repeat on the layers as we did with the Ocean Ripple.

These last two filters should be a bit wave. Filter > Distort > Wave, just use a randomized wave. Repeat this as we did before on the layers with the Ocean Ripple and the Glass.

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Step 5

Select the original “Lens Flare” and go Filter > Distort > Twirl, set the angle to 100°. Repeat this on the layer just above it but this time set the angle to -100°.

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Step 6

And some final touches. I think that it is quite boring with a black and white colored mysterious project like this. Let´s add a Gradient Map, Layer > New Adjustment Layer > Gradient Map. Use a gradient from #0A00B2 to #FF0000 and to #FFFC00. Set the blend mode to Soft Light.

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Conclusion

We are done! There have been many different types of filters used in this tutorial. One thing that can be good when using filter is that you could convert the layer you are going to add a filter on to an smart object. This will make the filters “edit-able”. Thanks for reading!

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