htbrown Loc: San Francisco Bay Area

Feeling a tiny bit stir-crazy, so I've been playing with PS. I started with a photo of fallen leaves and ended up with this.

(Download)

PixelStan77 Loc: Vermont/Chicago

Creative. I like it!

Linda From Maine Loc: Yakima, Washington

Ohhh, very pretty! Can you give us a brief overview of how you accomplished? I try to encourage the learning/teaching aspect in PP Forum, though it's OK to just "show" as well

Thanks much!
Linda, section manager

Jim Plogger Loc: East Tennessee

Nice one. We had quite a few members last year who experimented with creating mandalas and swirlies from their original images. It was a lot of fun and very creative.

UTMike Loc: South Jordan, UT

Good result, thanks for sharing.

htbrown Loc: San Francisco Bay Area

It's pretty simple. I picked an image with bright colors and contrast, and then cropped it to a square shape. I put the red leaf in the corner because I wanted red in the center, but you can use any corner as the center. This was in LR, but there is no reason it couldn't have been in PS.

- Open the square image in PS and convert to a smart object. If starting from LR, pick 'open as snark object.' It's important it's a smart object before the next step, at least in my old version of PS.
- Change the canvas size to a little more than twice the dimensions of the image. You can give yourself some room, as the excess will get cropped away.
- Move the image to one corner. It doesn't matter which corner, but I started with the upper right, so the following assumes that.
- Duplicate the layer, and select Edit->Transform->Flip Horizontal
- Move the new image left until its right edge is just on the left edge of the prior image.
- Duplicate the layer again, and select Edit->Transform->Flip Vertical
- Move the image down until its top edge is just on the lower edge of the prior image.
- Duplicate the image yet again, and select Edit->Transform->Flip Horizontal
- Move the image right to complete the square you're building
- Select Layer->Merge Layers
You should now have an image similar to the third one below

Decide on your rotation. For this image, I used 30 degrees, but 45 degrees works well too, and you need fewer layers
Repeat the following:
- Duplicate the base layer
- Select Edit->Transform->Rotate.
- Rotate the image however many degrees. On my version of PS you have to drag it to the desired angle, but on newer versions you can enter the angle with the keyboard.
Repeat the above for
30, 60, 90, -60, -30 degrees -OR-
45, 90, -45 degrees
(and really, you can do it for any increment, but the more layers you do, the closer to just a circle you'll get)
The fourth image below shows the first rotated layer, the fifth with all rotated layers.

Now select all layers except the bottom layer. Change the layer mode from normal to lighten. What you get now will look like the last image below.

All that's left is to crop it, then adjust color, brightness, and saturation to taste.
.

The image I chose


Cropped square


The new base layer


one layer rotated


five layers rotated


five layers lightened

Linda From Maine Loc: Yakima, Washington

Thank you so much for your time in putting this together! I've added a link to the tutorials section of PP Forum Guidelines. Among other things, I didn't know what "mandala" meant. Google is my buddy!

htbrown Loc: San Francisco Bay Area

No problem. One thing we all got right now is time...

Coming of age on the left coast in the sixties, I can't remember when I didn't know what a mandala was. Perhaps I should have called it a kaleidoscope.

SpyderJan Loc: New Smyrna Beach. FL

Very interesting and not a waste of time at all. Thanks for the detailed instructions too. I like the kaleidoscope reference. I have had more than one of those magical little tubes. I spent many hours amazing myself with the beauty of geometry. 😁

Curmudgeon Loc: SE Arizona

Wow, very nicely done. Something else to learn in my spare time

htbrown Loc: San Francisco Bay Area

Here's one more. Instead of using four (0, 45, -45, 90) or six (0, 30, -30, 60, -60, 90) layers, it only uses three (0, 60, -60).
You can still see the natural origins of the image, which may or may not be desirable, depending on what you're after.

I call it the Spiderweb.

(Download)

Linda From Maine Loc: Yakima, Washington

Oh yes, I think seeing the "origins" could be desirable in cases. Thanks for the additional idea!

calla Loc: California

WOW!!! Very nice!