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To start it off on the right foot, grab your ‘G’radient tool and choose a gradient. Now put the gradient blending mode on difference. Changing the blending modes simply allows the gradient light to add up on top of or ‘in addition’ to each swipe that you create. Do several swipes on the reflected gradient. If you keep them close together at a similar angle you will end up with something close to what I have here.

Before you know it you’ll have an incredibly amazing result (hopefully even with the sleightest of hand). If you want you can switch gradient tools (ie. reflected to linear or diamond...).

Go to Image: Adjustments: Desaturate or Shift Ctrl U. This will strip away the color information which is what you want for now. You just wanted to create the cool EFX.

Now that you have created some gradient swipes on your background layer for your kickin’ background, go to add a color adjustment fill layer from the fill/adjustment layer icon at the bottom middle of the layers palette. Choose a bluish color and then scroll through the B boys (blending modes).

Here is a few different results. You will be using the power of the blending modes a lot in this tutorial. As much as you might want to understand or do understand on a technical level, it’s really their effective application in Photoshop Design that just makes it all worth it. It is important to know that what they are doing is simply mixing the color and light attributes of the selected layer with the layer beneath it. The results will greatly vary depending on what situation you’re in but there are general standards discussed in the Basic Photoshop training program and Photoshop Designer training.