Twisty curve thing

I wonder how others would go about making a twisty curve like this one in Photoshop?

The reason I ask is because I've had Photoshop CS 2 for ages but I hardly ever use it and would normally arse about with the pen tool in Fireworks to do something like that... but I got to thinking I could probably do it much easier in Photoshop, that there's probably even some tool that twists stuff for you?

I also kind of stick to Fireworks because I've used it for years and I keep telling my friends that there isn't anything you can do in Photoshop that you can't do in Fireworks, but I'm also thinking of upgrading to CS3 and getting illustrator too, which I don't have now at all, so I'm sort of trying to convince myself of the greater things I will be able to do.

 

Welcome to Photoshop I certainly hope we can convert you to PS and AI.

Well, the most professional approach to this that comes to my mind right now is to use the pen tool as you mentioned. Create a path(not a shape) but a path, that matches one of those strands. Then, as you notice, there are a couple of these strands that make up each "Glow white thing". So for each of these strands, make a path. Then make a white, or slightly bluish brush for about 4px. Make a new layer on top of your background layer. Make sure it's selected, go to your path tab, select the paths and select "Stroke", in the dialog box that pops up make sure you select "Simulate pressure". That makes it looks like a real brush made it.

Then once you have those brush strokes on your layer, do some adjustments to them, blur them, play with blending modes to get the neonish color. Stuff you are probably farmiliar with from Fireworks.

There are ofcourse more amature ways of going about this. .. Say just making some lines, applying a "Twist filter" i think it's called? man i'm not sure, or just warp it or something. But the method I mentioned first is probably the only one that will get you such a quality result.

Good luck

-Sasha

 

Thanks, I'm not totally sure I follow that. I haven't tried messing around with brushes in PS ever, I do have Corel Painter though so it's not totally alien, I do have a tablet and pen too. I'll reread what you've said a few times and give it a go.

 

Read some Photoshop path tutorials.

It's hard to just jump into PS but you'll be glad you made the switch. How does it feel to use PS after coming from Fireworks?

 

better yet

I made a simple screencast for ya
http://rapidshare.com/files/105360418/swirly.zip.html

Keep in mind this is only a simple video on the technique that should be generaly used. You should obviously spend a little more time than a minute on it lol

 

PS feels really awkward and a bit irritating, it seems much easier to move things around and alter them in Fireworks. I keep trying PS to do things (seeing as I paid a fortune for it and only used it like twice), then end up saying to myself "oh **** it, I'll just do it in Fireworks instead!".

P.S. Just saw your last post, I'll have a look at that, thanks!

 

I sort of muddled my way through it in the end. It took me a while to figure out the brush bit is on a different layer and the pen part is sort of separate, and that you must have been hitting shift or alt or ctrl here and there. Thanks.