Site Search:

New Canvas

Open a new canvas in Photoshop (File, New) that is sized about 500x500 pixels with a white background in RGB mode.

Create a Petal

In nature, petals are all different shapes. From the thin-to-wide petals of a rose to the long skinny petals of a daisy, each flower has a look that's all its own.

To that end, I won't say how your petals should look. The petal that I've chosen to make was created with the rain-drop shape in Photoshop, and "distorted" before I rasterized the shape.

Gradient Overlay

There are a lot of ways we could perform this step, but I'm serious about making my graphics easy to edit without having to start over from scratch. It's way too much work to create a beautiful graphic only to find that it's the wrong color and it's not so easy to change.

So. We're going about it the layer styles way - because layer styles can be quickly and easily edited.

First, set your foreground and background colors to something "flower-ish". I'm just using a gold-to-orange that reminds me of tiger lilies.

Then, g o to your layer styles dialogue (Layer, Layer Styles OR the small "f" icon in the lower left corner of the layers palette) and choose "Gradient Overlay". Choose the gradient that is the colors you've just set.

Make sure that the "dark" part of your gradient points to the inside of the petal - toward the center of the flower.

Ready to Rotate

Okay, so here's the kinda-tricky part. We need to rotate our petals so that it looks more like a flower ... but we want them to rotate like the hands of a clock.

Lucky us, Photoshop gives us the perfect key right inside the Free Transform tool.

Click "Edit" and choose "Free Transform". You'll see a "target" - a circle with four points coming off it like a compass - right in the center of your shape. If you hover over this target, your pointer changes shape. Click and drag the target up - right to the inside tip of your petal.

This is reference for the next step - don't save any edits! Try rotating the petal now, using one of the corner handles. Neat, huh? Now click your Move tool and don't apply changes.

Duplicate & Rotate

Now we've got the right idea on how to rotate our petals. Before we rotate them, though, we need to duplicate so that we have more petals to work with.

Right-click your petal layer and choose "Duplicate Layer". Then, click "Edit" and choose "Free Transform" and use the technique we learned above... repeat the process until you have a full circle of petals.

Fix the Gradient

Now that we've rotated petals, the gradient has been messed up on some of them. We want the darkest part of the gradient to always fall to the inside.

On each of your layers, go to the Layer Styles dialogue and change the angle of rotation until each of the petals has dark to the inside of the flower.

Now, here's a great time to remind you to save. I didn't, and accidentally closed the wrong canvas ... so you'll notice the flower below is a bit different than what I began with. I didn't save and so here I am looking silly.

More Shadow

This is looking fantastic but real flowers have more depth, so we need to add a little bit more shadow.

Using the darker of your two colors, draw a thin rectangle down the length of one petal. Don't let it go outside the petal, or you'll need to erase the outside parts later.

After you've drawn the rectangle, rasterize the shape. Then, click "Filter", choose "Blur", and pick "Gaussian Blur". Adjust the slider until you have a smooth shadow adding depth to your petal.

With this shadow, duplicate and rotate to place on each petal - use the same technique we used to rotate the petals themselves.

Create the Center

What's the center of a flower called? I know I should know but I can't think of it so I'm calling it the center.

All that it takes to create the center is to draw a circle using the shape tool. Hold your shift key down while you draw it to keep it a perfect circle. Rasterize the layer.

Then, using lighter colors than your petal gradient, add a gradient overlay. This time, set the type of gradient to "radial".

Make Some Noise

The only problem with our center is that the normal center of a flower is filled with pollen and doesn't look so smooth.

We'll fix that by clicking "Filter", choose "Noise", and add noise to the center. Adjust the amount of noise until you have something you like.

Finishing Touches

Essentially, we're finished. This step is totally optional - add dots, lines, or other "flowery" additions if you like ... or don't if you don't.

Another finishing touch you can make is to add a second row of petals. To do this, just duplicate one petal and make it smaller to fit "inside" the original ones. Repeat the duplicate & rotate process.