Bored @ Easter? Little PS time waster

[webbEvents]

Heres a funky little game to waste some time and maybe learn the interaction of colours when using difference and exclusion blend modes in any of the Photoshop range. (Not sure about Elements though - if someone can try and let us know)
OK:
1. Create a new blank document, A4 size @300dpi will do. Background colour set to white.
2. Select the gradient tool - make sure the palette is set to default white/black.
3. draw a grad from the top left corner down to the bottom right.
4. Now - keeping in the grad tool for all of this - change the black in the olour palette to a nice bright colour.
5. IMPORTANT BIT: change the blend mode to "difference"
6. Now draw a grad from the opposite top corner down to the opposite bottom. Cool eh?
7. Continue randomly changing colours/grad styles/lengths of lines. Also try changing between "difference" and "exclusion".
8. You can try a few lens filter effects on there too if you get really bored.
Here one I did earlier:

Enjoy
Webby

 

[chphoto]

Cool stuff webbevents!



Extension exercise: How to make a (sort of!) brushed metal effect

1. Open a blank document
2. Get the gradient tool, set it to "Difference", and a black-to-white gradient
3. Go nuts! Do loads of long gradients from all directions. It will look a mess - don't worry.
4. Go to Filter > Blur > Motion Blur, set the blur to a big number, at least 800 pixels. Experiment with different angles for the blur.
5. Done!

You can repeat the motion blur again if necessary. I like to make adjustment layers for Levels and Curves to really accentuate the highlights and dark areas.