Photoshop Tutorial: Pixel Sorting Stretched pixel glitch art effect
Hello everyone this is Chris from Spoon Graphics back with
another video tutorial for Adobe Photoshop.
Today I'm going to show you how to create an abstract piece of artwork using the pixel
sorting effect, where coloured pixels of an image are stretched to create a detailed visual effect.
Authentic pixel sorting is a type of glitch art that is usually generated by computer code,
but we'll be replicating the appearance with Photoshop's built in filters.
If you search for pixel sorting artwork on sites such as Pinterest
you'll see some great examples of this art style where the effect is combined with a photographs,
usually with these extended pixels creating a melting or dropping appearance,
or totally replacing a subject's entire face to create a surreal image.
That's exactly what we'll be producing in this tutorial, an abstract art piece that
features a hooded figure with long glitchy pixels that extend vertically from his face.
I have a set of Pixel Sorting Photoshop Actions available over on my Spoon Graphics website.
Consider becoming an Access All Areas member to download this item,
along with hundreds of other premium design resources, as well as additional tutorials,
and all the downloadable source files for each design.
To create this pixel sorting artwork in Photoshop, we first need an image to work with. I'm using
this picture of a hooded figure from Unsplash.com. Link to the download is in the description.
This image is quite large, so first go to Image > Image Size and scale it down to 2000px width.
Drag the background layer onto the New Layer icon to duplicate it.
Go to Image > Image Rotation > 90 degrees clockwise.
Then go to Filter > Stylize > Wind.
In the settings, choose Stagger, then hit OK.
To extend the pixels further, repeat the last filter,
which is conveniently placed at the top of the Filter menu.
An even quicker method is to use the CMD+F shortcut.
Repeatedly press it to stretch the pixels around 20-30 times.
The original picture will soon become completely unrecognisable.
Go to Image > Image Rotation > 90 degrees counter-clockwise
to place the image the right way up.
Turn off the visibility of the pixels layer for a moment.
Select the Pen tool and zoom in to the face area.
Begin tracing around the hood by clicking and dragging to produce curved lines.
Don't pay too much attention to the lower part of the selection.
Once the path is closed, right click and choose Make Selection.
Click the Layer Mask icon in the Layers panel to apply the mask to the pixels layer. Bring
back the visibility to see the stretched pixels are confined to this hood area we just traced.
To extend the area, use the Rectangular Marquee
tool to draw a selection that matches the width of the hood.
This rectangular selection overlaps the hood a little too much with its top right corner,
we'll come back and fix that in a moment.
Right click and choose Transform Selection,
then zoom out and stretch the selection all the way off the bottom of the canvas.
Zoom back in to that top right corner,
then hold the ALT key and draw a small selection to deselect the corner area.
Use the ALT+Backspace shortcut to fill this area with white in the layer mask
to reveal more of the stretched pixels.
Go to Select > Deselect to remove this selection.
We could leave the effect how it has naturally generated,
but if you uncheck the link with its mask,
you can Transform with the CMD+T shortcut and move the pixels around to find a better layout.
Stretching the layer vertically can also help to elongate the pixels further.
Zoom in and hold the CMD key, or CTRL key on Windows,
and click the mask of the pixels layer to load its selection.
Add a new layer, then set up the brush tool with a soft tip.
Paint around the top portion of the hood to add soft shading to the inside,
to help to blend the pixels in so it seems like they're flowing out of the hood.
Add another new layer then switch the foreground colour to white.
Dab a few spots here and there as highlights. Change this layer's
blending mode to Color Dodge and reduce the Fill value to produce a vibrant glow effect.
Load the selection again to add highlights only within the pixel area.
Apply a Gradient Map adjustment layer as one of a couple of finishing touches.
I'm using a preset from my FREE DuoTone gradient presets you can download from Spoon Graphics,
but the colour values are 071716 and 4E8387.
Set this gradient map layer to Soft Light to boost the contrast of the
image with a subtle colour cast. Reduce the opacity to around 50%.
Add a Hue and Saturation adjustment layer to adjust the overall colour of the artwork.
This piece looks pretty good with a blue colour scheme.
It's also possible to create pixel sorting effects using a different image entirely. This
allows you to choose a more detailed base image for more complex pixels in different colours.
Rotate the image so the pixels are stretched in the right direction,
then repeatedly apply the Wind filter.
Copy and paste this new effect into the main
document and place it above the original pixels layer.
Use the CMD+T shortcut to stretch the pixels further and find the best layout.
Hold the CMD key and click the pixel layer mask to load its selection,
then apply the mask to these new pixels instead.
The final result is a surreal image with the popular pixel sorting effect.
With some creativity you can use this effect to
make all kinds of colourful artwork by stretching the pixels of an image.