Suave Sunburst

09-02-2009 | Last editted on 10-06-2009 10977 views

Learn how to create bursting lines coming out of a centerpoint like a sun or a wheel with this handy tutorial. It will teach you how to use 2 methods to optimise your speed in Photoshop!

Difficulty: Rookie 7 comments | Posted in Effects, Basics


Introduction
You've seen me use this technique in various projects, including the header of version 9 of MickM.com.
It's a really nice technique and I really love it. I also love it that's it's so easy to make. It can be used for retro-fying your artwork or with a soft blur actually making it look realistic!
There are 2 ways of making this Suave-Sunburst and both are really easy, one of them is a standard shape and the other requires a little more clicking, but in the end looks better most of the time.


Method 1: The Shape
For both methods I'm going to use the same items; my logo and a Dark-Red background. I'm gonna leave the stripes white or black. Obviously, you can fiddle with the colors if you want to!

Suave Sunburst
The basic method, and perhaps also the easiest is the shape. Go to your Shape-Tool and select from the list the "Registration Target 2". If you do not have a long list like me, click on the button in the top-right corner that looks like a PLAY-button and click on SHOW ALL SHAPES, or just ALL.
This shape is really an elipse with lines coming out the middle. The nasty side-effect is, is that this is an elipse, so you should always make it larger then your document in order to NOT make it look like an elipse. Also, the middle has no lines whatsoever. If you do want that, I suggest you skip this and go straight on to Method 2!

Suave Sunburst
Just click and drag the shape behind your logo or whatever you're using. As I said, make it extremely large - larger then your document.
What I did, was zooming out and then adding it. That way you can see when the shape isn't inside the document. When you're done, just fill it with white.

Suave Sunburst
I personally think it always looks better when you lower the opacity or, when you're working with nice colored background like me, set it to OVERLAY to really get that color-explosion! You can also fill it with black or switch using CTRL+I. Sometimesm Black looks much better and sometimes White. I highly recommend trying it out. It never hurts to try?

Suave Sunburst Suave Sunburst
Method 2: The Pen-Tool
If you hate the Pen-Tool for it's usage of curves and corners, not to worry, this is just as easy as the Polygonal Lasso-Tool. In fact, if you want to use that, be my guest! The reason I always use the Pen-Tool though is because you can alter the anchor-points when you're done.
Anyhow, start at the center with clicking and continue as shown below. Each time making a point in the middle, making a point outside the document, another next to it and going back towards the center.
It's a little frustrating on large documents sometimes, but it's actually really easy. All you do is click and make the same pattern, but this time, you're in total control.

Suave Sunburst
Continue towards the end and when you're done, your path should look like this. It can also deviate a little if you want bigger spaces between the lines or thinner lines all together.

Suave Sunburst
Again fill this with White by right-clicking and select Make Selection. Then fill it. Also pay attention to the opacity again. It looks much better!

Suave Sunburst Suave Sunburst
Conclusion
The main thing with the sunburst is, not to overdo it. And if you want to fade the edges, do it softly, otherwise it will look very crap. If you want the edges to fade out, grab your 100px, 200px or 300px Eraser and brush away the outside. Or to do it easier, grab your Elliptical Marquee-Tool and select the area you want to remain, then press CTRL+SHIFT+I to invert the selection. Go to Image>Feather or Image>Modify>Feather and select a nice amount like 40-70 and press OK and then DELETE! Have fun with this!!!



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jillianne vega

January 16th, 2010

hot bitch

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MickM

August 26th, 2009

It isn't a font :) It's my logo and it's handdrawn in Illustrator.

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Rosa

August 26th, 2009

Thank you very much... Nice tutorial! :o

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in tae

August 22th, 2009

What that Font please,tell me

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Rosso94

July 7th, 2009

When I create sunbursts, I create vertical stripes with the pattern tool, then use Filter>Distort>Polar Coordinates.
I didn't realize there was a custom shape of a sunburst, so thanks for pointing that one out

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Laurie-J

February 13th, 2009

There's another way that I do it:

Make a bunch of long thin rectangles the height of your image sort of like a fat barcode. Then go filter>distort>polar coordinates.

Works well for those too lazy to do all that pen tool work haha.

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Narendra.s.v

February 12th, 2009

Nice tutorial but i wonder why its posted twice?! I can see two here http://www.mickm.com/tutorials


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