Today we are going to practice Photoshop layer styles to illustrate a very beautiful illustration. I will use just layers styling methods.

So let’s do it.

First I want you to create a new document 1024×768 and 72dpi will do just ok.

Then, create a new layer to work with.

I will now fill my layer with black to white gradient.

Here are my gradient fill settings.

There we go.

I will copy the layer and apply Layer mask that will hide my border.

Here are the settings and modes of my layer copy.

Opacity is 89%.

I will use one of my favorite filters when it comes to advertising illustration.

Filters>Distort>Twirl.

Here we have it.

Well it is perfect but not enough.

Maybe some transformation will do the trick.

Amazing, just the thing I’ve wanted to do.

Now let’s make the image more vivid. I will paste some text to fill the foreground with something.

Here is my text, it says 8ms. Firs thing that I’ve remembered), I’ve just worked on 8ms matrix response time monitor that day.

As you can see the – MS – and 8 are on 2 separate layers.

Let’s style the 8 first.

By the way I’ve changed the font on MS.

And now – the entire layer styling:

Bevel and emboss settings are quite standard, only the light should have fixed 90 degrees position.

I will color it with light blue to give the picture some color.

Quite standard gradient overlay.

I like the texture. It gives those waves inside the object.

Notice that my fill counter is set to 0%.

.

I’m giving only one layer style to my MS: it is standard drop shadow.

I don’t really like grayscale color gamma (personal) so I will color balance the whole image a little bit.

And now the final step.

Switch to pen tool and make a curve like so.

Now stroke the whole path using Stroke Path option.

Here is the brush with witch I’ve stroked the path.

As all this curved thing is on the separate layer I will style this one too.

And here is my final result.