DAVID TO HOWARD: I’m trying to replicate the motion swoosh [from the March 20 blog entry — H.C.], and I just can’t seem to do it. I made the shape with the pen tool, filled the path, stroked it and then started messing around with the eraser brush set at different opacities, but it just looks horrible. I can’t get it to look smooth and natural. Where might I find a step by step?

HOWARD TO DAVID: Say no more, David. I'll be happy to take you more slowly through the steps I took to achieve the effect in the image below.
Besides the background (still occupied by Lulu even though I'm going to click the Eye Icon in the Images Palette to make her invisible during this demo), there are three Photoshop layers involved in this picture. So what's on those three layers?

Well, there's my sword drawing, of course. I start off by drawing that, scanning it into a file of its own, and duplicating the Backgrouund layer so that I can get rid of the white that surrounds my sword.
I drag this upper layer into my Lulu file, where it automatically becomes a layer of its own.

I'll call this new layer my Sword Layer.
With my pen tool I create two "swoop" paths, convert the paths to selections, and then, on a new layer I'm creating for this purpose, fill those selections with white (see below). As you'll notice, I then add light blue inner swoops (again with with the Pen Tool) that hug the inner edges of my white ones.
Both the blue and white swoops occupy the same layer. I'll call it the Swoops Layer.

Now lets add some subtle blue "haze" between the swoops.
This will happen on its own layer (see above) Again with the Pen Tool I create a shape that will occupy the area between the swoops on my Swoops Layer. As you can see, I'm using a paler shade of blue this time.

I'll name this third layer the Fill Layer.
Above you'll see how the Swoops Layer and the Fill Layer look when I make both of them visible. (The Fill Layer is underneath the Swoops Layer.)

My next step is to make both the swoops and the fill color fade away at their tail ends. I've made them on separate layers because I want one of them to fade more gradually than the other and one to be, once I'm finished, more transparent than the other.

On the Swoops Layer I want my blue and white swoop shapes to begin fading very close to their tips. So I click on the Eraser Tool, choose the Brush setting (rather than the Pencil or Block settings) and pick a brush size that will cover the area I want affected. Using the Eraser Tool's Brush setting will make the edge of an erasure soft and gradual instead of sharp, as would be the case if I was using the Pencil or Block settings.

(SIDE NOTE: In my Photoshop Preferences I have "Normal Brush Tip" selected under "Painting Cursors" in the Displays & Cursors Menu. This generates an onscreen circle when the Eraser Tool is in use that shows me how big an area will be affected by whatever brush setting I've chosen.)

Below you can see how my swoops look both before and after I've clicked the Eraser Tool.
Because I want the blue fill between my swoops to fade out more gradually than the swoops themselves, I select a far larger brush size for my Eraser Tool this time (see below).
Below you'll see what all three layers look like when I've made them all visible at a transparency setting of 100%. (I've temporarily put solid color on the background layer so you won't be distracted by Lulu's charming double-take.)

Notice that I've chosen to placed my Sword Layer below my Swoops Layer but above the Fill Layer.
To finish things off I create the "airier" feeling I'm after by setting the Swoops Layer's transparency at 77% and the Fill Layer's transparency at 47%. The Sword Layer, of course, remains at a solid 100%.
There's nothing magic about the particular transparency settings or erasing brush sizes I've used. In both cases I've just played with Photoshop's relevant sliders until I've seen a satisfactory result. Should I tackle the same job at a different time I may well choose totally different settings.

In other words, there's loads of leeway for experimentation and individual taste when you're playing with special effects like this one.

Now back to the Blog!