Photoshop Twirl Filter

It is not as simple as we first thought!

Image: Acer

There was a trend for a while, to use the twirl effect in photoshop. It was great! I liked it a lot. I turned my Acer image above into a swirl, and I really liked the look of it. For some reason, today, I decided to see what photoshop experts suggest on how to use this filter.

Apparently, you don’t just click and twirl! Who knew?

So you apply Filter/Pixelate/Mezzotint first. This looks odd but go with it. The options you use here can affect contrast. It seems that small dots equals less contrast and long dashes are more contrast. After that, you have to apply Filter/Blur/Radial three times. Then you apply your twirl. And then you duplicate your layer and adjust the blend mode.

(If you are not used to using photoshop, I am not being deliberately vague. I am going to give you the link below to the youtube video that I watched.)

Once you have your original twirl done, the extra effects come from creating a second layer, and using blend modes.

And last of all, you can create a third layer to het the mirror image effect. I highly recommend working with a low resolution file until you find the look you like best. There are a number of variables on the mezzotint layer, and there are a number of variables on the blend modes, and there is the mirror imaging as well. The twirls effects take a while to render and if you keep trying new things before deciding which you like, you are going to soon get tired of waiting for the rendering to complete each time!

Image: Different looks during this process

I promised to give you a link to the tutorial video I watched so here it is: click here. Have fun trying this out. For me, it was like having a kaleidoscope toy as a kid! I can already see loads of ways to use this effect, but probably not in the way anyone would expect!

And, if you are interested in what my original image was, this is it below:

Image: Acer