Microtech Redesign- Pg4- Giordan On Graphics

Step 3- Combining Multiple Layers

I'm going to let you in on a little secret here. Sometimes, the coolest, most artistic effects don't make the best tutorials. When you're really in there creating stuff, the design development can be circular rather than linear. And while circular is good for artwork, it's not always easy to follow when you're trying to learn techniques in a lesson format.

The reason I'm telling you all of this is that my original work with this technique involved creating multiple tiles with diverse distort patterns and colors, and mushing them all together in one grand Haight-Asburyesque free for all. The patterns crisscross as they overlap, building very interesting and unexpected effects.

Instead of taking you down that winding road, I'm going to simplify things by duplicating and modifying the filter effect created in the last step. I'm just going to plant the seed in your brain that you may wish to explore these other complexities once you've got this basic approach down.

At this point you have a background layer that is undistorted and a Background Copy layer that has been distorted using the Shear filter. We are now going to duplicate the Background Copy layer a second time. To do this, select the Background Copy layer and duplicate it by selecting Duplicate Layer from the Layers palette options menu. This will create a new layer called Background Copy 2. (To make things easier to follow, you may want to double-click each layer in the layers palette and rename or number them).

With the Background Copy 2 layer active, select Edit>Transform>Flip Horizontal. Set the layer blending mode to Overlay to see how the two patterns interact.

To add more complexity, make the Background layer visible and set the Background Copy layer blending mode to Hard light, and Copy 2 blending mode to Overlay.

Finish by duplicating the Background layer again and drag it to the top of the layer stack(this makes four layers in all). Select Image>Adjust >Invert, and set the blending mode to Darken, with the Opacity slider at 60%.

Here is the finished background.