Well, this effect came from a dream of mine. I had it a long time ago, where these aliens came to earth, and they came into the atmosphere through these blue swirly time portals. So i decided to make a tutorial on what the effect looked like!


The End is Here:

This Picture Taken by: http://www.carlwozniak.com (Visit the site for more Excellent Cloud Shots.)



1. First of all, bring in the picture. Press “Ctrl+L” to bring up the Levels. And use the following settings:



Now, Press “Ctrl+L” again, this time use these settings:



You should now have something that looks like this:



2. Now, grab the lasso, and make a selection around a dark cloud structure, You can see where I drew my selection in the image below.



3. Now while its still selected, go “Filter > Distort > Twirl” with the amount of “300”



4. Now while the area is still selected, right+click inside it, and choose “Feather” with a radius of “10” pixels. Now, right+click inside the selection again, and choose “Layer Via Copy” (this copies the section within the layer)

5. You should now have 2 Layers. 1 that has everything, and 1 that just has a portion of the clouds.

First off, take the cloud layer, and set its blending mode to “Soft Light”



6. Now, “Ctrl+Click” on the layer with the cloud portion (this should make a selection around that layer) and press “Ctrl+F” (This repeats the last filter, which in our case, is the “Twirl” filter)

7. Now, with the selection still…selected, go “Filter > Distort > Pinch” with “70%”

8. Now we have to add the same effect to the other layer, so (with the cloud selection still up) click on the second layer, and press “Ctrl+F”



9. Now, if you like the color the way it is. Then you don’t have to do this next step. However, if you’re looking for a more toned down, cooling effect kinda look,

Then go: “Layer > New Adjustment Layer > Hue/Saturation” and use these settings:



Now, That’s basically it. However, I went ahead and added some Lightning to the Scene to add the effect of a real storm :P To make it even better! You could make a cow getting sucked up from a field… now that’d be funny ^_^ But, this is what you should have in the end.



This, is what My final product was:



Hope you enjoyed this tutorial!

-Scott

© 2006 Scott Walker

hmm looks nice, think I can make my own version of that too :P

The End

wanted to make it even better, but my photoshop got an error and yes, ... :P

oh damn, can u merge it or something, double posted :P

Dont worry about the double posting :P It's all cool. And it does look cool :D Think it'd be awesome to add some fire to the houses and stuff, give it that whole doomsday look :D