I see these things everywhere. On the web, in print, even on clothing. Kind of retro, kind of modern, kind of asian, kind of cool. I found a tutorial I liked and I have rewritten it using Adobe Photoshop CS3 for windows. The Starburst translates well as a background for items in a print catalog as well as an e-commerce website. Take a look at the tutorial that follows. This is a very simple filter based tutorial. On a scale of 1 to 10 I give it a 4 on the difficulty scale.

First thing we need to do is create a new 500 x 500 pixel workspace in Photoshop.

Second select two colors (foreground/background) for the rays of the sunburst.

Once the colors have been selected, we need to apply a halftone filter to the image.
Filter>>Sketch>>Halftone Pattern

After selecting the mentioned filter the following dialog box will display. You will need to set the Contrast to 50. I chose 10 for the size. The size can be adjusted depending on the overall size of the graphic. Since I selected 500 x 500 pixels a size of 10 works perfectly.

Following is the result of our Halftone Pattern filter application to our workspace.

Next we need to rotate the workspace 90 degrees either clockwise or counter clockwise. The tutorial shows a 90 degree clockwise rotation but it doesn’t matter. We need vertical stripes instead of the horizontal. See the results below.

One last filter to apply.
Filter>>Distort>>Polar Coordinates
Make sure the “Rectangular to Polar” option is selected on the Polar Coordinates dialog box.

And finally the finished product.

ENJOY!

Disclosure

Idea for tutorial from the following sites:
phong.com
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Minty Ferret

• Kerry Webster » Orange Starburst