This tutorial will show you how to create an awesome abstract plasma wave effect. This effect is great for making transparent 3D waves.
1. Create a new document, mine will be 400x100. Fill your documents background with a medium-dark color, such as #363D49:
2. Now create a new layer, and select the Pen Tool (
) from your toolbar in Adobe Photoshop. If you are not yet familiar with the pen tool, you may want to take our tutorial on using the pen tool before continuing just to get the (very) basic idea of how it works. You can find that tutorial here:
3. Now make a point somewhere outside of your document using your pen tool. You may need to expand your window in order to perform this step. Simply drag out on the edge of your editing window to enlarge it:
4. Create a few more points until you have created a shape similar to the one shown below:
5. This may not look to nice right now, but that's ok, we still need to add some blending options to it to make it look nice. Right click your layer with the shape you designed, and go to blending options. Apply the following:
Outer Glow:
Note: If you want your wave to be another color, you may want to change the light blue out for a separate color.
Inner Glow:
Note: Just like above, you may want a different color rather than the blue used in this tutorial.
Color Overlay:
Note: Yup, same as the other two notes, you may want to change this color depending on what you are designing.
6. Apply these settings. Now, in your layers palette, be sure that your shapes color is set to black:
7. Finally, set this layer to lighten:
8. And thats it! You should now have a great looking transparent plasma wave! Try adding more onto your image for some awesome results. Each layer is partially transparent, so as you add more on top of one another, they will build up and become brighter:
Good Luck!
More Tutorials: 
