Okay first off, set your foreground color to white, and your background color to black (these are the two little squares at the bottom of the tool palette). then, up at the top, go to filter> render> clouds
Okay now go to filter> sketch> bas relief. the default settings should be fine.
Now things start to get a little less boring. go to filter> sketch> plaster. default settings are what we want.
Now go to filter> blur> radial blur and use these settings:
Amount: 20
Blur Method: Spin
Quality: Good
now DO NOT! press ok. see the 'Blur Center' area with all the black lines illustrating the blur effect? click on it, and move the origin of it to the top left.
We gotta add some texture, so go to filter> texture> craquelure (use default settings). Now of course we gotta add color to it, so go to image> adjust> hue/saturation and in the bottom right corner click 'colorize'. use a hue of 205, saturation 25, and lightness 0. click OK.
We aren't done yet. Make a new layer(layer> new> layer). Now go to filter> render> clouds and then go to your layers palette. near the top there should be a drop down menu that should say "Normal". Change that to "screen". this is called a layer mode.
Ok cool. First of all you should have 2 layers, no more, no less (top one with clouds, other one has our background). While on the layer with the clouds, go to filter> distort> wave. Leave everything at their default settings, except for "Type". change that to "Square" and click OK. Now we want to merge the layers, so go to Layer> Merge Down . This will make the 2 layers into 1 layer.
Okay so here's where all of this comes together. The reason there was so much stuff above this step was because a nice textured image will have a much better result.
So. This step looks familiar, go to Filter> Blur> Radial Blur. This time use a Zoom blur method, and an amount of about 40, with a Best quality. Adjust the blur center to the bottom right. click OK.
Here is the cool part. go to image> adjust> brightness/contrast. Use these settings:
Brightness: -22 (notice its negative)
Contrast: 65
Okay so now you should have a cool looking thing.
Now would be a good time to save.
Here is where our image starts to develop. Okay so go to layer> duplicate layer. now just go to Image> adjust> hue/saturation and fool around with it (make sure you are on 'colorize') until you get a nice purple color. Next erase all the parts of the purple that you don't want. look what i did (image on the left).
Duplicate the original blue layer again, and again colorize it to a nice red. erase all the parts u don't want, just like we did in the above step.
Repeat the above step but with a green color.
Your layers palette should now look like this. (i named each of my layers to make it easier to tell them apart)
Make a new layer. Here i added some lines with the line tool, and a rectangle shape. then i added a little "02".
Make a new layer. In the top right, i made a circle with the circle selection tool, and went to edit> stroke and put a white stroke on it. i then used the eraser tool to make it into a quarter-circle. that just adds a little trendiness to the image.
I also added some nice 'skyline' images, with roads and sky-scrapers. i erased parts of them until they fit in nicely.
Before i go on, i would like to point to that pretty much every step after here should be done on a brand new layer.
Not much of a step, but i added some white airbrushing near the center.
A nice little addition, here i added one of them bus schedule maps which i scanned...but I'm sure you can find one on your local transit website.
Okay now for a nice effect i added a 'dot' grid on a layer mode of 'overlay'. click Here to learn how to make this grid.
I also added some text saying "Abstract".
Here i used my paintbrush tool to add some nice circles going along in a curvy way, set on 'overlay'.
Added some more airbrushing... also here i made the grid layer invisible(click the little eye thing beside it on the layers palette), just because its a little easier for airbrushing to have it off.
Okay i typed out some "10101010"'s and went to edit> transform> distort and fooled around with that. then i set it on overlay and put it in the blue part of the image on the left.
Then, you can barely see them, but i added some ovals near the center.
Finishing touches: I used some brushes i picked up a while ago somewhere for the white lines (which have sort of a grungy effect) on the right of the image, and i added a nice shape with a brush into the middle of the image. slap the grid back on, and voila.
And there we have it. Looks cool, eh?
