Rainbow Circles

I own the intellectual copyright for the written tutorial.  What you make is yours, but please do not take my tutorial.  Share only my link.

This tutorial is intended for a beginner to learn about layer blends.  If you have any questions, please feel free to email me.

To do this tutorial you will also need Photoshop CS3 - CS4.  You may download a free trial at Adobe.

Remember to save as a .psd file often!

1.  Open a new transparent image, size 400 x 400 pixels

2.  Choose the Ellipse Tool

3.  Set the ellipse tool to Circle. 

4.  Draw a Circle with the ellipse and a color that is a dark gray (but not black)

5.  Right-click on the layer and choose blending options.

On the first screen, set the Fill Opacity to 50%

Then click on the WORD Stroke.  Set Size = 10%, Position = inside, blend mode = normal, opacity = 100%, fill type = color, color = black

6.  Right-click on the layer and choose Rasterize Layer.

7.  Edit > Define Brush Set;  Give the brush a name

8.  Open a new, transparent image, size 600 by 500

9.  Set the foreground color = #262626

10.  Choose the brush tool

11.  Choose the circle brush that you just made.

12.  Window > brushes  to open the brushes palette

13.  in the brushes palette, click on Brush Tip Shape.  Set size = about 300 px, set spacing = 100% (or adjust so that circles look touching)

14.  Click on WORDS  Shape Dynamics.  Set pen pressure diameter to 50%

15.  Click on WORDS  Scattering.  Set Scatter = 1000%, Count = 5, Count Jitter = 1%

16.  Click on WORDS  Other Dynamics.  Set Opacity Jitter = 50%, Flow Jitter = 50%

17.  Click on the icon (circled at bottom of image) to add a new brush set.  And save this brush with the settings you just made.

18.  Layer > New > Layer

19.  Choose the Gradient tool

20.  Fill the layer with a rainbow style gradient.  I dragged from top left corner to bottom right.

21.  Set the layer blend mode to Overlay.

22.  Layer > New > layer

23.  Set the layer blend mode to Color Dodge

24.  Choose the paintbrush, set with the brush tool that you made last.   Set size between 250 and 300.

25.  Left-click and drag brush across the image.

27.  Filter > Blur > Gaussian   Radius = 10

28.  Layer > New Layer

29.  Set the foreground color = white.  Change the brush tip to a smaller size, such as 100 to 150

Left-click and drag the brush across the image.

30.  Set the layer blend mode to Overlay.

31.  Here is what your image should look like.  I added one more layer (Layer > New > Layer), and set the foreground color to another color and size to about 300, and left-click once in the center to make the green circle.

32.  Add your images and text.

33.  Save this as a JPEG.  File > Save As.

 Please do not remove this tutorial from my site.  Share my url.