Published on May 14, 2023
Create an abstract sunburst effect in Photoshop
In this blog I will show you how to create an abstract sunburst effect in Adobe Photoshop!
Rather watch the video with instructions? Then click here or scroll down to the end of this page.
Step 1: Preparations
Create a new square file with a white background. It doesn’t matter what size the file is, as long as it’s square.
Then navigate to ‘View > Guides > New guide layout‘. Create 20 columns.
Then select the rectangular marquee tool. Select the first, third, fifth, seventh, etc. area between the guidelines.
If all the lines are selected, select the paint bucket tool. Make the foreground color black. Then click on one of the selected lines to make all of them black.
Press CTRL+D to deselect. We won’t need the guidelines anymore. If you want to make them invisible, press CTRL+;.
Step 2: Abstract sunburst effect
Navigate to ‘Filter > Distort > Polar coordinates‘. Then select ‘rectangular to polar‘.
You have created the abstract sunburst effect now! In the next step I’ll show you how to change the colors.
Step 3: Change colors
To change the colors of the sunburst effect, create a gradient map layer.
Click on the gradient to adjust the colors. You’ll see a black to white gradient first.
To change the color of the black stripes, change the color of the black color stop. To change the color of the white stripes, adjust the white stop.
And that’s how you create an abstract sunburst effect in Adobe Photoshop!
Want to learn more about editing in Adobe Photoshop? Then check out my other blogs or take a look at my YouTube channel!
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Photoshop
Basics
Photo editing
Creative editing
Camera Raw
Neural filters
Text effects