100 Styles 1 + 2 - Black and White - Text Effect with background

Text effect with background

As you may guess from the title this is the first of what will (hopefully) be a 100 posts where I experiment and showcase different effects you can create with Photoshop Layer Styles. I want to do this both to challenge myself and to provide something for others to be inspired by and learn from. The former will be achieved by me trying something new in each "stylistic experiment", and the latter will at least be helped by me posting screenshots of the settings used - as well as providing the style files for anyone interested to download and check out and experiment with.

My plan is to do one each week day until I'm finished, which means that unless something unexpected happens you can expect five per week (each week on a different theme) the coming 20 weeks. I'm going to start off by somewhat breaking that order and post two styles today (as it's technically the second day of the week even though I still haven't gone to bed the first), but in general that's how things will be.

Day 87: Effects

Created in Photoshop CS3 Extended using a Wacom Intuos 3

Playing around a bit with some effects, so that's the name of today's picture.

Day 79: Fire and apples

Created in Photoshop CS3 Extended using a Wacom Intuos 3

If you're looking for the apples I got to tell you that it's the flowers I'm talking about, they're apple flowers ;-)
Photomanipulation and a few effects.

Day 78: Deconstructing fire

Created in Photoshop CS3 Extended using a Wacom Intuos 3

It's fun to play with fire, and when it's digital it's not very dangerous either.
Photomanipulation and some paths for the "idealised" fire.

Day 73: Contrasts in life or death

Created in Photoshop CS3 Extended using a Wacom Intuos 3

And no, there is no hidden car fishing in there. I've stepped away from the theme, mostly because this image (a gift to a friend who had his birthday some days ago) have been taking so much time to create. But also because I like it, of course there are a bunch of things I'd like to do better, but for the most part I'm really happy with it. And just so you don't think I've handpainted this I gotta add that it's mostly edited photos and filters, and a few more "handpainted" details.

Day 60: Silent reflection

Created in openCanvas 4.5 using a Wacom Intuos 3

Not sure how silent this is, there's a lot of noise in this picture, but the again, if it's supposed to be abstract it can just as well be a bit strange too :)

Day 59: Breaking apart

Created in openCanvas 4.5 using a Wacom Intuos 3

Continuing this weeks theme with another fairly abstract piece :)

Day 58: Meek isn't weak

Created in openCanvas 4.5 using a Wacom Intuos 3

In case you find the words on the picture difficult to read they say "Meek is NOT the same as weak"

Day 57: Burning table

Created in openCanvas 4.5 using a Wacom Intuos 3

Fire can be very devastating in reality, but it's very fun to create as an effect in a graphics program. It's not as hot to deal with this kind of fire either.

Day 54: Bird on vacation

Created in Inkscape using a Wacom Intuos 3

Even birds need to go on vacation sometimes, and this one is so exhausted that he falls right down on the sandy beach to relax.

I noticed some minor stuff I should've fixed, but it's a quarter past midnight here, so you'll have to survive =)

Day 51: Water dragon

Created in openCanvas 4.5 using a Wacom Intuos 3

Here is the water dragon to finish off the "elemental dragons" series.

I haven't painted in every drop of water. The drops in the background are created using one of openCanvases features, called tones, that makes it possible to paint/draw etc as usual, but only the parts corresponding to the chosen "tone" are affected. The drops in the dragon's mane are done using the same base image, but this time as the nib/tip of the tool I've used.

Day 50: Cat and poem

Created in openCanvas 4.5 using a Wacom Intuos 3

Even a silly text can have a meaning to it, but that doesn't make the sillyness less silly, just okay ;)

Day 47: Bright universe

Created in Artrage and openCanvas 4.5 using a Wacom Intuos 3

Is this what interstellar space travel looks like? Don't know, but if traveling through space looks like this I'd sure like to try it :)

Day 46: Color+effects=experiment

Created in openCanvas 4.5 using a Wacom Intuos 3

I was in a hurry so I created this quick experiment.

Day 41: Looking up 4

Created in Inkscape 0.45 using a Wacom Intuos 3

See below for Swedish version of this text. Se nedan för svensk version av texten.

A variation on the theme I began three days ago, please read more about it here: Day 38: Looking up in case you haven't already, there you can also read about the little competition I'm having. And considering that the only guess I've received so far was "a shark with giant ears", something I can assure you I don't have in my apartment, don't hesitate to guess even if it might seem strange.

-\/\/_SWEDISH_\/\/-

En variation på temat jag började med för tre dagar sedan, läs gärna mer om det här: Day 38: Looking up om du inte redan har gjort det, där kan du också läsa om den lilla tävling som jag har för tillfället. Och apropå den är den enda gissning jag fått in än så länge "en haj med väldigt stora öron" och det har jag verkligen inte i min lägenhet, så gissa även om det kan verka dumt, vem vet du kanske gissar rätt.

Day 30: Santa?

Created in openCanvas 4.5 using a Wacom Intuos 3

Yay! 30 days! That's a regular month, and, to celebrate that, this is the first day when I post a slightly larger version as a preview, I think the previous one is a bit small so I'll try this for now.

And in case someone is worried that the bottom frame is covering anything interesting I can calm you down by saying that it's not :)

Day 29: Djungle light

Created in openCanvas using a Wacom Intuos 3
(Though the part at the bottom is created in Inkscape)

This was an experiment where I tried to experiment with a few grayscale shapes and tried to make a colorful and interesting image just using filters. I think the experiment was successful, what do you think?

Day sixteen: Over the sky (in two versions)

Created in openCanvas 4.5 using a Wacom Intuos 3Created in GIMP 2.4.4 using a Wacom Intuos 3

The two versions are made in two different programs. The first one is made using a program called openCanvas, and when I'd made it I thought "why not try to recreate it using GIMP". So that's what I did, and here you can see the two versions. They're slightly different
, but while I like the first one better they both have their good sides :)

Day one: The one that started it all

Created in openCanvas4.5 using a Wacom Intuos 3

Despite not being a part of the actual desktop-a-day this picture belongs here because it was after I had created this I got the idea to start with this project in the first place. While not being very planned or technically well-done I still like this picture, there's something interesting in the contrast between the simple, childish shapes and the more "professional-looking" colors and effects.