«

[taikara]

This is an intermediate tutorial that uses Magic's Basic Brushed Background Tutorial as a base.

Following this tutorial, you should be able to achieve a "pulled taffy" effect that I rather like. I know you hard-core grungy brushers out there will be rolling your eyes at the fluid plasticky look, but too bad, I don't personally like the grunged-up look, and it's nice to know how to do a variety of effects.

So put away your grunge brushes for a moment, and we're going to make a simple background that looks something like this:



Software used: Photoshop 7.0

Step 1:

Start out with your Basic Brushed Background, or create a new one. It's better to use an image that is larger than the intended size of your sig or banner.

I use 800x800, with a transparent background.

Mine looks like this (Surprise, I used the same one for my Distressed Glowy Background:


(Feel free to use mine if you don't want to bother with making a new one).

If your BG uses layers, go to Layers > Flatten Image, so you're left with one background layer.

Step 2:

Colorize your background by going to Image > Adjustments > Hue/Saturation (Ctrl+U). You can tweak until you find a color that makes you happy, or use my settings to achieve a nice red color:


Don't forget to check the colorize box first.

My Result

Step 3:

Go to Filters > Liquify (Ctrl+Shift+X).

In the Tool Options menu on the right hand side of the Liquify pop-up window, make sure your brush setting is really big (it should take up at least a quarter of the image size, preferable a third or so). Or, just use my settings:



Twirl the brush around in circles a few times. You'll have to click and twirl a few times to achieve a good effect. I typically do little circles as I make a bigger circle path around the image, much like pulling taffy (thus the name Taffy Pull for the effect :P ).

Continue until you're happy with the outcome.

If you mess up, or liquify it to the point it's just a blob, then you can start over by clicking on the Revert button in the Reconstruction menu on the right hand of the Liquify pop-up window.



I ended up with this:



Step 4:

Voila! You've got a background! Now, all you have left to do is to cut out an interesting area to use for your sig or banner.

I'll post my cut out again:



See? Simple and easy.

And, I'll be using this background for another simple effect for text. Yay.