Photoshop is a powerful tool that belongs in any designers toolbox. From the range of photo editing techniques available, to creating website mockups and designs, to making fantastic wallpapers, Photoshop has a feature to satisfy the hungriest designers appetite. One of the most unique and creative things you can accomplish with Photoshop are abstract effects. Today, we will have a look at 40 (updated from our previous 15) amazing abstract Photoshop tutorials.

1. Chroma Wallpapers

Color Charge wallpapers are colorful, vibrant, energetic and most importantly, distinct. This lesson teaches you how to recreate that approach in any of your creations.

2. Using Blends to Create Depth

Find out how to use blends to create depth in this fantastic tutorial, which you are free to download and browse at your own pace.

3. Create a Light Effects Abstract Composition

This is the perfect abstract tutorial for the absolute beginner. The tutorial slowly and 'gently' walks you through each step of using Photoshop techniques and brushes to create a light effects abstract composition.

4. Abstract Space Tag Design Tutorial

Learn how to create an abstract space tag design in this tutorial. The tutorial covers topics such as dealing with stock images and manipulating them, working with custom brushes, and many different light techniques.

5. Abstract Lighting Effects

Using waves and Photoshop CS4, learn how to create stunning abstract lighting effects and colorful waves in this tutorial brought to us by SignatureStop.

6. Abstract End of the World Photo Manipulation

While it's not the most upbeat topic, the tutorial is superb. Learn how to use different images and effects to achieve a final result that gives the effect of the end of the world.

7. Easily Create a Unique Abstract Website Header

Tutorial 9 brings us this excellent website header tutorial, in which David Leggett walks us through all of the necessary steps to create an effective an abstract header. Add a little creative touch to your website with this great Photoshop tut!

8. Create Abstract Colored Blocks

Touching on every subject from balance to color theory, this tutorial by Sanity Penguin works through every step of the process to create abstract colored blocks in Photoshop.

9. Make an Abstract Wallpaper with Brushes

Looking as if it was influenced by intense light and fractal images, this great tutorial via 10Steps teaches one how to use free Photoshop brushes and techniques to create a stunning abstract wallpaper.

10. Smoke Effect Tutorial

Smoke effects are often a very sought after and desired effect to achieve in Photoshop. With the tutorial above, you can create random smoke swirls and effects in this abstract tutorial by TutorialGuide.

11. Abstract Swirl Mania in Photoshop

From the famous Abduzeedo.com comes a fantastic abstract tutorial. Fabio goes through over 30 steps in Photoshop to walk you through creating the abstract swirls. Aimed toward the intermediate to advanced user, this tutorial is one of great fame and popularity for good reason.

12. Easy Abstract Wallpaper

While the tutorial above was geared more towards advanced users, fear not. Our next abstract tutorial is designed to be super easy to follow while still delivering effective results. Give it a look and learn how to create an easy abstract wallpaper.

13. Abstract Dreamy Scene

Straight out of a fantasy novel or fictitious postcard, this tutorial by 9Tuts starts off with a simple stock image. We are then taken through an array of steps and tasks to finally achieve a great looking abstract dreamy scene.

14. Making a Modern Abstract Scene

Out of all the tutorials mentioned, this one might be the most abstract yet. We have no idea what it is, but we do know that the final outcome looks great.

15. Ice Age Disaster

This tutorial isn't about recreating any ancient history, but, about creating a world that looks like it has been turned into a deserted blizzard town. If you have a taste for the slightly dystopian feel and look, then this tutorial may be the one for you.

16. Magic Lighting Effect

17. How to Create a Gorgeous Glassy Text Effect

From the wonderful PSDtuts comes this abstract tutorial, which walks you through all the steps of creating a gorgeous glassy type effect in Photoshop. With over twenty three steps, this tutorial is a must see.

18. Blackberry Style

Blackberry imagery uses a unique wavy pattern using unusual lighting effects. Many artists have difficulty recreating it, but this guide removes the mystique.

19. Brilliant Light Streaks

The process for creating brilliant light streaks is a simple yet not obvious technique. Once you’ve mastered it, you’ll be able to use brightness and motion in a wide range of creative ways.

20. Windows Vista Aurora Effect

The Windows Vista Aurora design effect demonstrates extraordinary use of color balance layers. This tutorial teaches you how to recreate it, and use those skills elsewhere.

21. Simple Space Lighting

Space lighting may seem trivial, but this lesson shows that it’s anything but. Plus the skills learned here will serve as a foundation for some of the lessons later in the list.

22. Luminescent Lines

Luminescent lines are a popular and relatively easy effect. But this tutorial digs into the subject in order to teach powerful skills for creating and effective use of custom brushes.

23. Lonium, an Abstract Art Piece

This lesson takes abstract effects to the next level by creating a combination scene. Through this coordination, the student learns many advanced relational skills.

24. Realistic Star Field

Star fields seem simple, but they’re actually quite hard to do realistically. This article breaks it down into easily digestible steps, and even covers topics like space dust and lens flare.

25. Light Beam

This technique advances on the skills in ‘Luminescent Lines’ to create a light beam. By doing this, you combine those earlier skills with various blur concepts: Gaussian, motion and radial.

26. Impressive Color Spectrums and Rainbows

This guide advances the concept of lines with line patterns. Line patterns are basic, but they provide the foundation for a number of sophisticated Photoshop techniques.

27. Special Purple Lighting

Special purple lighting combines a wide range of brush effects for a singular purpose. Once you’ve completed the tutorial, you’ll be able to recreate it in any color you desire.

28. Amazing Colorful Swirl

This advanced tutorial builds on the swirl concepts we learned earlier. Once you’ve mastered this approach, you’ll be able to create almost any kind of swirl effect imaginable.

29. Magic Rainbow Color Flame

This lesson combines various curves and related techniques to create transparent rainbow gradients. The obvious result is a magical rainbow flame, but in the process, you’ll learn countless curve and color techniques.

30. Super Abstract Lines

At this point, we’ve done lines and lines patterns. Now, it’s time for abstract lines. Although simplistic, abstract lines are one of the cornerstones of modern graphic design.

31. Smoke Fading

This lesson builds on earlier smoke skills with fading techniques. These techniques are the key to combining smoke effects with other images.

32. Abstract Effects on Images

This article takes that thought process a step further by fading a wide array of effects and elements into other images.

33. Awesome Retro

Retro-style effects — think Commodore 64 logo — are often the perfect background for images. This downloadable tutorial covers the wide range of retro effects using pictures and effective instruction.

34. Color Nuke

At this point, we’ve used many advanced brush effects. This tutorials adds some more, and then combines them to create a color nuke, an advanced color technique you’ll use often.

35. Dazzling Abstract Lighting

This guide employs a number of blending effects while using various line and light techniques.

36. Simple Vibrant Light

This approach to simple vibrant light uses all those line techniques we learned earlier to create the light designs that are so prominent in modern graphic design.

37. Abstract Light Bulb

This lesson takes vibrant lights, and it gives them more defined shape and form. After this tutorial, you’ll be able to build light effects with whatever shapes and forms you can imagine.

38. Pitch Effect

This amazing tutorial teaches you how to create paintings and manipulate photos so that the view angle is at any pitch desired.

39. Wavy and curvy

Rather interesting tutorial that will teach you how to abstract curves and waves.

40. Facing a New Day

Earlier we did an Ice Age effect. Now, we’ll do something similar, but much more advanced by combining many of those lighting effects you’ve learned at earlier stages.

We hope that these tutorials can help you design your website and make it cooler and more professional looking than ever before.

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