Abstract Techno

Most of this tutorial is just “experimentation.” You’re supposed to play around specifically with the Distort filters “Twirl” and “Wave,” but I will demonstrate first how it works and then you can have all the fun with it. It may also be helpful to set your settings to Image --> Mode --> Grayscale because we are not working with any colors here.

Step 1 Create a new image with a size of your choice. For the purposes of this site and the space in the content area, I will work with 300x100. Use the freehand Lasso Tool to trace around the sides of your rectangular document, but not too close to the edge.

Step 2 Right-click in the selection and Layer Via Copy. Do a black and white gradient overlay at an angle about 45 degrees and a scale of 150%. Merge this layer with a new blank layer.

Step 3 Now let’s add some texture to this gradient layer. Do a Filter --> Pixelate --> Crystallize. I did a cell size 19, but you can choose whatever size you want. Next do a Filter --> Stylize --> Extrude and change pixel size to 50. Leave the rest as default. You should get something like this:

You will work with this image multiple times, depending on how you want your abstract to look like.

Step 4 Now we will start experimenting with some distortion elements, specifically Twirl and Wave. But first - and this is important - duplicate your texture layer to keep a copy of it for creating more than one abstract element. Now go back and highlight your original layer (it may also help if you make your duplicated layer invisible). Do Filter --> Distort --> Twirl and change the settings however you like. (I left mine default) Then do Filter --> Distort --> Wave. Now this part is where it gets tricky because there are many combinations you can make with the options you have under the Wave filter. I really do not know how to describe it to you, so you can just have some fun playing around with it if this is your first time using this function.

Also note that there are different types of wave: Sine, Triangle, Square. I highly recommend using those other choices, but for simplicity-sake, we will keep to the Sine type in this tutorial. Here is what I got:

Step 5 You are welcome to do more of these distortions with your duplicated texture layer, which you may repeatedly duplicate again and again if you wish. For now, as you play with around with it, I want to show you a specific combination of Twirl and Waves. Have your texture base layer ready for this.

1) Wave - Generators: 4; Wavelength: Min. = 1, Max = 43; Amplitude: 48, 48; Scale: Horiz. 100%, Vert. 100%

2) Twirl - Angle 50 (2x)

3) Wave - Same as above (1x and 2x respectively)


And you should end up with something like this, along with your other distorted, abstract elements.

Step 6 Now let's start from scratch again and make a new texture layer to work with to combine with our first creation. I did the exact same procedure as I described from the beginning, except that I added a Film Grain right before the Extrude step.

And honestly, I really forgot the exact numbers I had in the Wave filter option to get this result, but again, like I said before, you are free to play around with it, so you can make something that you would like better.

Step 7 Now what I did was flip this texture vertically and slapped it on the first image. Here's the final result: