Creating Geometric Shapes with Plastic Wrap

While working with the Plastic Wrap filter recently, I discovered an interesting way to make geometric shapes that can be integrated into backgrounds or used to create what my friend and colleague Scott Kelby calls "Euro collages."

STEP 1
Open a new document or an existing document. Add a new layer and fill it will black or a dark color. Filter> Artistic> Plastic Wrap. Drag the Highlight Strength slider all the way to the right. The positions of the other two sliders are insignificant at this point. Click OK.

STEP 2
Re-open the Plastic Wrap dialog box with the keyboard shortcut Option-Command-F (Mac) or Alt-Control-F (PC). As you can see in the following image, the Detail slider plays a large role in the appearance of the image. Set the Detail slider to 7 and click OK.

STEP 3
Press Command-F (Mac) or Control-F (PC) to apply the Plastic Wrap filter again with the most recent settings.

STEP 4
Apply Plastic Wrap twice more with Command-F (Mac) or Control-F (PC).

STEP 5
Use Filter> Sharpen> Unsharp Mask. Set the Amount slider to 500%. The Radius and Threshold settings can greatly change the result. For low resolution images, start with a Radius of 10 and Threshold of 2. For high resolution images, double the values.

STEP 6
Drag the layer from the Layers palette to your working document. Change the layer blending mode and opacity to suit your creative needs. Compare, for example, the blending modes Screen, Color Dodge, and Luminosity.

There is a near-infinite number of variations, limited only by your imagination. Add additional applications of Plastic Wrap or Unsharp Mask. Apply other filters in between, such as Distort> Glass. Try rotating the image 45 degrees before applying Plastic Wrap the second time. You can also vary the effect by scaling between filters.