You will need to install separate Disintegration brushes which you can find online for free. We’ve used this pack from Brusheezy.
We recommend starting with an image with a plain background, similar to the one we’ve used. If you want to experiment with stock photography, you can try Adobe Stock free for one month too.
We’ve used Adobe Photoshop to complete this process, which is available separately or as part of Adobe Creative Cloud. Some students are eligible for an extended free trial of Creative Cloud, and there are also ways to get Photoshop for free.
Next, hide the new layer by clicking on the Eye icon.
You can increase or decrease the radius of the brush using the square brackets on your keyboard. Use the left bracket “[” to decrease the radius and the right bracket “]” to increase the radius.
The degree of distortion you apply will form the distance of the dispersion or disintegration in your final image. In other words, distort it as intensely as you want to see the “ashes” fly.
Once you’re happy, click OK.
Next, with your Dispersion layer selected, hold Alt (or Option for Mac) on your keyboard and click on the Mask button at the bottom of the Layers panel. This masks or hides the Dispersion layer.
The Mask button is the rectangle with a circle within it (highlighted in the next slide).
You should see that your Dispersion layer has a black mask, while the Foreground layer has a white mask. The former is a Hide Mask, while the latter is a Reveal Mask.
Make sure the foreground colour of the brush is set to black when on the “Foreground” layer as this is what blocks out (that is “masks”) bits of the selected layer. Start blotting out parts of the image.
Play with the brush size, type and rotation of the brush so the dispersed bits don’t look like a pattern.
This is also where you can rotate the brush (by clicking the arrow on the circle with the cross-hair, which represents your brush tip).
Click on the “Dispersion” layer mask.
Take your time here to get the effect you want.
In the ‘Dispersion’ layer, use the white brush to show particles and the black brush to hide particles. In the ‘Foreground’ layer, use the white brush to hide the edges of your subject and the black brush to reveal edges.
Select the Soft Round brush from the General Brushes palette in the Brush menu.
This should produce a new layer, “Layer 2”.
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