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With a photo of a model shot against a black background, Hollywood-based Syndrome Studio weaved
strands of light and energy around her. To do this, they first developed three base entities—an energy element, water splash images, and groups of airbrushed circles—then they used masking and blending modes to fuse them into dazzling energy streams.
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Syndrome first created an energy
element in a 3D software application,
rendered the element with an alpha
channel, and saved it as a TIFF. Opening
the TIFF in Photoshop, they accessed the
Channels palette and Command/Ctrl-clicked
the imported alpha channel to
select it. They copied the selection, went
to their main image file of the model, and
pasted the alpha channel selection to a
new layer. Then Syndrome duplicated
the element layer (Command/Ctrl-J),
clicked the Lock transparent pixels icon
near the top of the Layers palette, and
filled the layer with yellow. (Only the
element was filled since the transparent
pixels were locked.) The yellow of the
duplicate element covered the detail
of the original element below it, so they
set the layer blending mode to Color
to blend yellow with the details.
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Next, Syndrome shot photos of
splashing water against a black background
and brought them into layers
in the main image file. To only show
the intricate details of the splashes,
Syndrome set the layers to Lighten to
make the backgrounds transparent.
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To complement the energy element,
Syndrome created a new layer
and painted with a soft airbrush for a
small opaque sphere with a blurred
edge, then duplicated the layer and
scaled the sphere for variety using
Free Transform (Command/Ctrl-T). They continued duplicating and manipulating
sphere layers and used the Move
tool to overlap the shapes, which added
varying levels of opacity and depth to
the blurred edges.
To consolidate all
the spheres, they placed the layers in a
layer set (Create a new set icon at the
bottom of the Layers palette) and added
a mask to the set. By selecting the mask
thumbnail and painting with black, they
concealed parts of spheres to blend
them into a unifi ed shape.
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For fine details, Syndrome drew a
line with the Pen tool on a new layer and
chose Save Path from the Paths palette.
After choosing a small yellow brush, they
chose Stroke Path from the Paths palette
menu, then chose Brush in the resulting
dialog box to add yellow to the path.
On the stroked path’s layer, they added
a mask, selected the Gradient tool, and
chose the Foreground to Transparent
icon in the Options bar. Dragging the
tool from each end of the line to the center,
they made the line fade to transparency
at the ends. For more depth, they
duplicated the layer, placed it beneath
the original, and applied a Gaussian Blur.
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After determining where they wanted
energy streams to surround the model,
they started duplicating layers of the
energy element, the water splashes, and
the sphere layer sets to form dominant
shapes. To do this, they moved the layers’
order as well as repositioned the entities
on the individual layers and used Free
Transform to distort them. They added
masks to several of the layers and painted
with black to continue contouring the
shapes so they would fl ow around the
model. Once layers were composited
and masked to their liking, Syndrome
dragged the layers that formed specific
energy streams into several layer sets.
To quickly apply a global Gaussian Blur
to an energy stream, they duplicated
the layer set and collapsed it to a single
layer by pressing Command/Ctrl-E. From
there, they applied an Overlay or Screen
blending mode to the collapsed layer
and duplicated it several times to build
up texture and contrast.
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Syndrome repeated the line effect
throughout the image, including a
layer of circular lines positioned around
the model’s finger to simulate a water
ripple. To add realism, they chose Filter >
Liquify and clicked Backdrop under View
Options to see all the layers of the main
image. Setting the Brush Pressure low,
they used the Warp tool to subtly contour
the ripple lines.
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The final image is shown at left.
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