How to Design Hi-Tech Metallic Wires in Photoshop

Today we’re going to make some really cool looking wires. They aren’t the best in the world, but I thought I’d go ahead and share my weird method of making them.

We will be making wires like below:

1. First off, make a new document with the dimensions 500 x 500

2.

Next, select the paint bucket tool ()

Select the color #444444 in the color picker

Now your document should look like this

3. Next, select the pen tool ()

On the top part of the screen in Photoshop is the pen tool configuration area. Select the one in the screen shot that the arrow’s pointing to

4. Now, play with the pen tool until you get something like this. If you’re a n00b with the pen tool, this may be difficult, but it really shouldn’t be

5. After you get the curved line drawn, make a new layer

6. Now select the brush tool ()

At the top you need to make sure the settings are at 1 pixel for the master diameter

7. Now switch your main color to #CCCCCC. This is so when we make the line it’ll be lighter than the background color

8. Now right click on the curvy line you made with the pen tool selected again and go to “Stroke Path” (make sure you’re on layer 2)

9. Select the brush tool and click OK

What that just did was take your line and actually fill it with a color. Your document should now look like this

10. So now we can get rid of the pen tools’ work. Select the pen tool again (), and right click on the line and go to “Delete Path”

11. Alright, now select the Magic Wand tool ()

And while on layer 2, click on your line to select it

12. Next, go to Select/Modify/Expand

13. Put 8 for the expansion

14. Now make another new layer and name it Layer 3

15. Select the Paint Bucket tool again () and fill the selection with it

16. Now go to to Select/Deselect

17. Finally we have our wire outlined. Now, select the Dodge & Burn tools () , and play around on the wire outline until you get something like this:

Now obviously that doesn’t look very good, but we’re just applying this to the actual layer so it helps the layer styles later

18. Next, right click on Layer 3 and go to Blending Options

Apply all of the settings I have in the screen shots to Layer 3

Now your wire should look like this:

o0o isn’t that shiny?

Ok, now for the boring part. I originally got this idea from SNECX (www.snecx.com), it takes a long time but works

19. You need to select the Line tool ()

Don’t bother making a new layer, it’ll make a new one for every line you make. Anyway, at the top of Photoshop, make sure you switch back to the original settings for this tool

20. Now, zoom up very closely to your document, and draw lines each pretty close to each other, aligning up to the direction of the wire until you get all of it covered, as shown below

21. Once you get that done, you will have like 25 new layers created, each is one line. Don’t worry though, it’s easy to get them all together. Go to Layer/Rasterize/All Layers first

22. Now, select the top most layer of the lines, and press CTRL+E to merge it down. Keep doing it until you have all of your lines merged into one layer (don’t merge them with the wire layer!)

Now if you did that right, all of the little lines should be on one layer called Shape 1

23. Right click on that layer, and go to Blending Options. Apply these settings below to that layer

Now your document should look like this:

24. You should be happy. You’re done. Here’s what it looks like in a sig :)

I bet yours probably isn’t even remotely close to this, is it? If that’s the case, post a comment if you didn’t understand something!