Start with a black horizontal one pixel pencil line in the middle of a white layer like this.




Then use the fuzzy selection tool to select the black line and run a [Select + Border] I used a 300 pixel border and made sure to select [Feather]. The bigger the canvas size the bigger the feather you want to do in pixels.




Then fill the selection with the foreground color of black.




Then create a new black layer, unselect everything and fill the layer with a linear black and white horizontal gradient.



Then set the layer mode to divide.



And finally use the curves to bend the gradient to your liking like the image below.


You can make all sorts of cylindrical objects and shapes this way. Just play around with different curve shapes.

Alan

PegLeg44. Nice one!

thanks for the tutorial !
pretty wild stuff

Nice but the bottom layer can just as well be filled with a bilinear black-to-50%gray gradient.

Rather easy to understand on a simplified version, with a vertical and an horizontal gradient:
- The horizontal gradient is just a mapping of the X coordinate of the pixels.
- The curve is therefore just a function the X coordinate of the pixels
- The value of the curve for X is the value by which we divide all the pixels on the same vertical line.
- Since that vertical line of pixels on the bottom layer is a white to black gradient, those with a value greater that the divisor value will have a result greater that one and be completely white, and the bottom of the line is a black to white linear gradient.
- Therefore the full-white limit line follows exactly the curve in the curves tool.

i just made this one form PegLegs technique, plus a cone shaped bevel, nothing else
looks pretty good imo

Ya! That's what I was trying to say. You can also do other directions other than X too, I think. I'm thinking of X and Y as axis points or something.

The flower stem and leaves were made by making a boarder of feathered pixels around a stroked path and then a black divide layer with an angled gradient to define the shape with the curves and then colorized and stuff. The pedals were done with lines coming out from the center that are feathered and a divide layer with a radial gradient that was manipulated with curves.



Alan