Erik

Inspired by Moth's Creepy thread on the showboard, I remembered that long ago we were delving into difference gradients, and that I had done some more work on that which wasn't posted.
Here it is:

METHOD:

1/ open a document, make it black. I chose 500x500 pixels
2/ set colours to black and white, take the gradient tool, set it to sphereical (or another mode, or combinations...as you please) and set its mode in the toolbar to difference
3/ draw a few large circles. example:

Erik

4/ Now apply the filter Sketch>Reticulation. I set it as follows, but please experiment:

density 40
Foreground 20
Background 3

5/ SelectAll, Copy to clipboard.
6/ Undo the filter (go back to initial state)
7/ Copy the background layer. Name it Reticulation or so (name those layers!!)
8/ add a layer mask to the ret. layer, Alt-copy the mask icon so that you see your white mask and paste your reticulated image from the clipboard unto the mask.
9/ Click on the icon of the image in the ret. layer to activate the image and go to Image>Adjustments>Hue Saturation. Change the hue (I chose some dirty yellow) and play a bit with saturation.

10/ Add two more laters, and uncheck the eye-icon of the others.
11/ Fill the bottom one of the two new layers with a solid colour. I chose a bright red
12/ Fill the top one with white, and apply monochromatic Gaussian noise to it. Quite a lot of it.
13/ Set the top layer to difference mode, and merge visible
14/ Drag this noise layer between the background and the ret. layer, and set its mode to SoftLight or so.
15/ Add a Hue/Saturation adjustment layer. Placed at the top, this will influence all layers below it. Decrease Saturation.

That's it.

Here is the result. Have fun, and play with it!

theKeeper

Good info Erik.

This reminds me of the old days when we'd combine various types of gradients in a channel, to create more complex 3D looking objects, then use that channel in the Lighting Effects filter, and apply it to a solid coloured layer. [righton]

Erik

Yeah...way back in time,...in Granite Valley, when Bill Gatesrock and Steve Jobstone were playing with little digital dinosaurs...


[size=24px]WIIILLLMMMAAA...I AMME HOOOME...

Dino...no...DINO...NOOOOO!!!!![/size]
[bustagut]

wbiss

[bustagut] Erik!

Seriously, this is a really cool effect and one that I will get around to playing with. It's right up there (but just under) Moth's gradient/lighting technique! [righton]

Thanks for sharing!

AppleCider

Very nice, Erik, thanks! I'll definitely be playing with this one. :}