Distorted Waves

This tutorial helps you create distorted digital waves with a slightly different end result every time. Making your image larger than it needs to be gives you flexibility to crop the best area out for your final graphic.

Step 1

Open a new image with a transparent background. Press D on your keyboard.

Step 2

Go to Filter > Render > Clouds, then Filter > Render Difference Clouds.

Step 3

Press Ctrl and hold down whilst you press F. Do this 3 times.

Step 4

Go to Filter > Pixelate > Color Halftone and change your settings to these:

Step 5

Go to Filter > Distort > Polar Coordinates and make sure Rectangular to Polar selected. You should have something like this:

Step 6

Next, go to Filter > Blur > Radial Blur with the following settings:

Step 7

Go to Distort > Wave and copy these settings:

Step 8

Keep pressing Randomise until you get a ‘thumb’ or pattern that looks sort of like the one above, in the small box.

Step 9

Go Image > Adjustments > Hue/Saturation. Check the Colourise box and change the Hue to whatever colour you like. Change the Saturation to 25 and the Lightness to 0. Alternatively see my colourising tutorial for more details on changing the colour.

Step 10

Go to Layer > Duplicate Layer then in your Layer Palette (bottom right of your Photoshop screen), change the blending of your new layer to Overlay:

Step 11

Go to Layer > Flatten Image, then save. Here’s mine: