Create futuristic looking tech pattern
This is one of these simple to do tutorials, but the effect just looks cool and pretty futuristic. So I've written a tutorial for it. Enjoy!
This article has been written using GIMP 2.4.4.
It's divided into 9 steps and takes about
15 min to complete for an average user. 11413 times read so far.
Category: Simple effects, required skill:

11 comments have been posted so far.
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1
Create a new image: 640x480 px. The Background should be plain white. Now choose Filters / Render / Clouds / Plasma.
Take these values: 10.000 / tubulence: 7 -
2
Go to Colors / Desaturate: Brightness and choose OK.
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3
Now we're giving our pattern the special look which it will have at the end. We're using the Dilate filter, a very simple filter that smallens the dark areas in an image. Don't be confused if you look at the quick description when hovering the entry in the filter menu - I think currently in Gimp 2.4.4. this is a wrong description.
Choose Filter / General / Dilate.
After this repat that filter 30 times. Use CTRL+F to repeat the filter quickly. -
4
Got to Filter / Map / Make seamless.
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5
Sharpen the picture now using Filter / Enhance / Sharpen: ~85.
Now we're giving our picture some color: Use Colors / Color Balance
Shadows: -50 | 30 | 30
Mids: 0 | 30 | 50
Highlights: -65 | -40 | 20 -
6
If you zoom into the image very closely you'll notice some gradients that are not very nice looking.
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7
To get rid of this we use Filter / Blur / Selective Gaussian Blur.
Values: 5 / Max Delta: 13 -
8
Now we want to have some cool glowing edges so that everything look really future style like.
Zoom back to 100% (do this fast by clicking the "1"-key).
Click "duplicate layer" in the layers dialog or just use the hotkey: CTRL+SHIFT+D
On the duplicate use Filter / BLur / Gaussian Blur: 10.
Set the layers mode (directly above the opacity ruler in the layers dialog) to "Lighten only". -
9
Thats all, we are finished! The softer result is in the left part of the picture below.
Option 1: If you want your edges to be sharper and more clearly looking use Filter / Enhance / Sharpen (40/50) again on the background-layer.
Option 2: If you want the whole picture a bit darker (less white glow and more saturated colors) simply create a new totally black layer above all layers and set the layers mode to "Overlay".
Have fun with this ;) Hope you enjoyed this easy tutorial.
This article is licensed under the following license: Attribution-Noncommercial 3.0 Austria




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