Tutorial: Stripe look

By Dirk Metzmacher

A mixture of illustration and photo material is a current trend in which the stripe look is used quite frequently. Usually people will direct you towards custom brushes and shapes, but actually Photoshop itself offers a number of options to generate stripes. For that we apply little used filters like „Wave“.

Filter effect

Preparation

In a new document, use the Gradient tool and the Shift key to make a gradient from the top to the bottom with the options Foreground-Background and Linear Style. The colors you choose determine the colors of the stripes which we’ll now create with the Wave filter.

Waves

Select Filter > Distort > Wave and use the settings 5, 70, 70, 500,700, 100 and 100. It’s important that the Wavelength and Amplitude have the same settings for their respective sliders. This turns the gradient into a stripe pattern.

Polar coordinates

If you want to turn the stripe effect into a radial pattern, use Filter > Distort > Polar Coordinates with Rectangular to Polar.

Shape layer

Basis

The shape tools offer another way. First fill the background with #222222 (RGB 34, 34, 34) via Edit > Fill, then set the foreground color to #eeeecc (#238, 238, 204). Use the Rounded Rectangle tool with its options set to Shape Layer and a Radius of 10 pixels to make a first basis.

Duplicate it with Layer > New > Layer via Copy or Ctrl+J, then scale it down with Edit > Transform > Scale or Ctrl+T. A double click on the layer’s thumbnail icon pops up the color picker, where you enter #ccbb88 (RGB 204, 187, 136). Confirm with OK.

Polygon tool

The Polygon tool is known for polygons shaped like stop signs, but with the right settings you can easily realize the stripe look. In the options, set the Sides to about 40, then click on the little black arrow to the right that opens up the geometry options.

Enter a Radius of about 500 pixels, check „Star“ and Indent Sides By about 93%. A click on Layer > Create Clipping Mask adjusts the shape to the layer below.

Continuing Tutorial

The workshop CD Jewel-Case is a great example of how such a stripe look works as a background for a CD case. Sure, it’s one image element of many, and especially the grunge effect enhances the result, but now we can get a step ahead without custom brushes or specifically created shapes, using only Photoshop’s own tools instead.