In this tutorial, I’ll show you how to design some amazing vector based Retro Rainbow Curves using Adobe Photoshop. These retro artifacts have become a popular trend in modern design!
What We’re Making
You can get an idea of what we’re going to be creating in the example below. You may want to touch up on your abilities with the pen tool before getting started, although I will try my best to be perfectly clear with all of the steps taken to achieve this effect!
Getting Started
Before getting ahead of ourselves, it’s probably a good idea to pick out a color scheme for our design. If you’d like to stick to the colors I’ll be using in my demonstration, check out the example below. Otherwise, if you need help coming up with some good ideas, COLOURlovers is probably a good place to start looking.
White - FFFFFF
c9402d
a9362f
Background - 312620
Go ahead and Create a new Document (I’ll be creating a 600×480px document), and fill the background with your background color using the Paint Bucket Tool.
Enable the grid display, and setup your grid to have a gridline every 20-50px, with 1 subdivision (I’m using a grid line every 30px since 600 and 480 are both divisible by 30).
Creating the First Line
We’re Teaching a Technique Here!
In this tutorial, we’re trying to teach the technique used to create these wonderful designs. While reading through this lesson, try to understand what it is we are doing rather than simply following our guide word for word. If you understand how this works, you’ll have an easy time creating your own unique designs later on!
To draw the lines in our design, we’re going to use the Pen Tool, and use the grid as a guide. First, make sure Snap to Grid is enabled (View > Snap & View > Snap to Grid). Select a Foreground Color for your first curve shape (I’ll be using #c9402d). Use the pen tool to create the first curved line. I’ve provided an easy to follow template below if you’re following along with my demonstration.
A few things to take note of here. First, you’ll probably notice that all concave curves (or the areas that should be curving inwards, like a dent) are all 45 degree angles. This is correct, and will be fixed later. You may have also noticed (as pointed out in the diagram) how the curves create points that line up with one another).
You’ll also notice that wherever there is a curve, the inner and outer points are directly adjacent to one another. All of these things are important factors in creating this effect.
Now, let’s deal with those inner curves.
Grab the Ellipse Shape Tool. In the Options Bar, select “Subtract from shape area“. This option will allow us to subtract from the area of our currently selected shape (so be sure your line path is still selected from your layers palette).
With the Grid and Snap still enabled, create the following circles to create the inner curves of your line (Hold Shift to create perfect circles, and use Space to move your shape while drawing it. Additionally, you can hold Alt to draw your circle from it’s center point if you find that makes things simpler.)
Once again, take note of the explanations in the diagram. These will help you create your own curves in your future designs! Your First Curve is Done!
Creating the next Curves
The curves following the first one are a bit easier to create (especially now that we have the technique down), because we really only have to create 1 side of the curve. You’ll see what I mean in a minute.
Create a new Layer UNDER your first curved line to create your new shape on, and select the Pen Tool again. Select a new color (#a9362f), and follow the template shown below.
As you can see in this diagram, we can be pretty sloppy with this curve compared to the first curve we created. Any areas that overlap with the first curve won’t show, so we don’t have to be careful with our points (although, you’ll still want to keep your points to a minimum, considering more points will require more space and processing power). If you’re having trouble understanding, look at how I created the shape in the diagram above — I created the nice, curved path along the outer edge, but where they two shapes touch, I left a jagged path for the new shape since it’s not visible from underneath our first shape.
You can continue this process for any subsequent curves you want to include in your design!
What if This Happens?
If you try to create another curve underneath the blue line, you might run into a small inconsistency. When you try creating curves with less than 1 diagonal grid segment in spacing, your curve spacing will end up being off. This can end up in a curve with a more blocky appearance than the curves surrounding it… which might be undesirable — or perhaps it could be what you’re going for.
Anyways, to fix this, you either need to create bigger curves to start out with, OR create the curve on the other side (providing that their isn’t a curve that causes this on the opposite side as well).
Final Touches
I’d like to leave final touches up to you, the designer. To get you started, here are a few things I like to do:
- Keep in mind that in their current vector based form, you can’t do a whole lot with your curves besides playing with the layer style and color. I typically will Merge the curves together into one single raster layer. To do this, Select all the Curve Shape Layers in your Layers palette, and go to Layer > Merge Layers(Ctrl + E). It might be a good idea to make a copy of your original shape layers first so you don’t lose those!
- Try to render some lighting effects over your merged graphic (Filter > Render > Lighting Effects). It’s a great way to add lighting and shade to your entire graphic in just a few simple clicks.
- Change the angles of your curves. Rotate the whole thing 45* to give it a whole new look!
- Add some type to compliment your lines. If you add type, try working with the same colors as used in your lines so that the text and lines harmonize with one another.
- Throw your lines into other artwork or photography of yours. Use the distort feature of Photoshop to give your retro curves some depth. Additionally, add some depth of field!
- Combine several different sets of curves together to create intricate line work, and more complex designs!
If you’re having trouble with any of the steps, feel free to Download the PSD for this tutorial!
Absolutely brilliant! The bullets at the end are very helpful, you should include them more often.
I love the outcome.
Very Very Very good!
I just didn’t get the last step… were we can get “sloppy” with the points… i don’t understand what we must to? I can get that effect but by creating a new line, just like the first… but for what i understood, the way you explain is very simple… but i think it’s not very well explain…
can anyone help me understanding what’s the process for the second line?
Thanks a bunch folks!
@ Pedros - Hey mate, I can see how that step may have been confusing. I went back and revised it a bit (look for the long, bold part under the diagram).
Basically, you CAN create the second shape the exact same way you make the first one, but you might notice some unwanted space between the two shapes if you do this. To fix this, I put my second shape layers (and any other lines afterwards) UNDERNEATH the original line, and then have the layers below overlap with the first shape.
I’ll get a PSD up in a minute so you can see for yourself!
Thanks, this is amazing!!!
You’re very welcome juniorvga =)
On another note, the PSD is up for download now just so you all know!
Fantastic Tutorial!
It was quick and simple yet the result looks fantastic. Thanks Tutorial9 :D!
Wow a very nice tutorial, I like the outcome! This mide come in handy some day, thanks!
Grtz
David, thank you so much! ehehe… i thought that was the trick, but i got confused with the diagram
Amazing tutorial
Hey, good tutorial. I dig the retro feel…I’m wondering if a lot of the leg work could be done in illustrator and imported into Photoshop. Just a suggestion.
Thanks everyone!
@ Cpt. Crayon - That’s a great idea
However, if you’re working with Photoshop alone, then this is probably the easiest way to get this sort of effect. Thanks for the suggestion!
nice tutorial dude, really like the retro style
and i just love the red color scheme!
How excellent! I’m using this tutorial for a graduation invite. Having fun with it so far!
[...] 5- Amazing Retro Rainbow Curves [...]
[...] 5- Amazing Retro Rainbow Curves [...]
[...] In this Photoshop tutorial you’ll be making those cool supermarket-style badges, then you’ll be turning them into subscribe buttons for your website, a must-have for any blog! Visit Tutorial. 5- Amazing Retro Rainbow Curves [...]
[...] Amazing Retro Rainbow Curves | Tutorial9 - Tutorial Bliss. In this tutorial, I’ll show you how to design some amazing vector based Retro Rainbow Curves using Adobe Photoshop. These retro artifacts have become a popular [...]
I’m catching up on some tutorials that I’ve been saving… and I’m just now getting around to this one. Wow! I saw requests in the forums for theory and method, and you definitely delivered both in this tutorial! Great job, David!
Great tutorial on creating curves. Using Grid and Snap makes the process much easier. Thanks David.
Good work
A very thorough tutorial, I can see myself using this style in the future.
Thanks.
Amazing Retro Rainbow Curves | Tutorial9 - Tutorial Bliss. | nerdd.net…
\r\namazing, simple and neat tutorial for a retro rainbow design\r\nAs you can see in this diagram,…
[...] Amazing Retro Rainbow Curves | Tutorial9 - Tutorial Bliss. (tags: photoshop tutorial retro) [...]
Awesome tutorial! Can’t wait to apply it to something lol.
Instead of making shapes with the pen tool, why not just use the Path tool and stroke them with a a brush? Or you can use the Pen tool and Stroke with that. This way it a lot easier to edit if you have to and you don’t have to cut out with circles.
@ DigitalDisasta - Both of those methods work great, but there actually is a good reason for why I chose this method (which I oddly enough didn’t really touch on in the tutorial).
As you can see in the final results displayed in the article, I really love playing with the angles of my lines. When you stroke (or use another means of raster graphics), quality is lost during transformations of any kind. The method I chose is very simple to resize, rotate, and edit (color/gradients/layer effects) without ever losing quality.
Both methods have their perks, and you’re definitely right that the way you mentioned can be much easier to edit in some cases.
Thanx for this tutorial. At least now I understand the pen tool a little bit better
Just a curious question - why did you need to make inner curves using the Ellipse Shape Tool? I tried different kind of curves after I followed this tutorial and you can perfectly well make them just dragging the handles with out the Ellipse.
Doing this in illustrator is like 500% easier. I admire your attention to detail, but this is really a job better suited for illustrator.
check it:
http://www.mantisartworks.com/tutorials/rainbow_lines.jpg
That’s a fast an easy way to do it in Illustrator mantis!
[...] Create amazing retro rainbow curves [...]
Chris Sponner’s
http://www.blog.spoongraphics.co.uk/tutorials/trendy-geometric-lines-design-tutorial
is easier and looks alot cooler!
Hi, i need help here. sry if im asking such a dumb question
im stuck when creating inner curves, the path not even change and still have marque tool ( doesnt change anything )
If anyone can help me here, im really glad.
Thanks
when i draw the circle with the subract i cant drag it or delete it without deleting the whole thing i got ps7 is that a problem
[...] 5- Amazing Retro Rainbow Curves [...]
When I use the Pen Tool to make the white line on the top, it looks really awkward. I can’t get it to curve on the top correctly.
[...] 5- Amazing Retro Rainbow Curves [...]
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