PS7: Make gradient-like patterns

Since there's been an influx of tutorials on creating textures and such, I thought I'd show everybody what I do. I don't really like using or making gradients in the gradient-editor, so I usually make patterns that look like gradients (at least that's what I call them ^-^).

I get an image (usually I'm looking for textures, so they turn out to be images of stones or sunsets or stars (huh, triple 's' ^-^) or something, but we'll use this one:

Joss Stone, v pretty pic, no?

We take a piece out of it, which turned out to be this:
I think it's better the more colorful your pic is. It's also very nice if your pic has dept, you get nicer textures that way.

Next we do a radial blur on the pic. I usually set it very high, because I love blending the colors and if you set it high, you also get that rounded texture in the middle. But this time it wasn't that high:
Uhm, for the "newbie's": Filter - Blur - Radial Blur

Then comes the motion blur. Again, This wasn't very high. Fiddle a bit with the settings:
Filter - Blur - Motion Blur

I wasn't quite satisfied with it so I radial blurred it again:


I also didn't like how it was too dark, so I duplicated the layer and set the second one on screen and then merged the two layers:


So. That was my pattern. So I then set it as a pattern Edit - Define Pattern. I usually do motion blur first and sometimes I only use motion blur or radial blur, so play around with it :).

Took a piece out of Joss, put the pattern in between on Hard light twice and put Joss on top on Overlay:


Put some brushes on the icon, et voila, your very own Joss icon!
(Of course, this is *my* icon, you can make your own!)



This was my first tutorial, so I'd really appreciate it if you would comment on if it was good or how I can improve my next one (or if I even should make a next one =\). Hope this was helpful!
Jean