I started to play with these a little while back and thought I'd put together a very quick, example of how these work.

SELECT A PHOTO
First, you start with a photo - Fireworks shots seem to work the best, or flowers.

Original PhotoOriginal Photo

LAYER 1 - ZOOM/PIXELATE
Create a dup layer, This will be used to convert the photo from a photo into lines and zoomed lines

• Mezzotint:
  • Filter 
  • Pixelate
  • Mezzotint
  • Select Medium Lines 
  • OK
• RADIAL BLUR
  • FILTER
  • Blur
  • Radial Blur
    • Set the amount to 100
    • Blur method to Zoom 
    • Quality to Best
  • OK
  • REPEAT at least 1-2 times (this was 3-4 times)
  • Below is the result:

LAYER 3 (Twirl 1) - TWIRL
Create a dup layer:  The twirl is used to give it this unique rotated look

• Activate the Twirl 1 layer 
• Choose Filter 
  • Distort 
  • Twirl
  • Enter an angle value and look at the preview till you get a look you like
  • OK
• Result:

LAYER 4 (Twirl 2) - TWIRL MIRROR
Create a dup layer:  Now we need a Mirror image of the Twirl

• Duplicate the Twirl 1 layer (now Twirl 2)
• EDIT
  • TRANSFORM
  • FLIP HORIZONTAL
• Change the Layer from NORMAL to LIGHTEN
• Result:

ADDITIONAL LAYERS:
The following show how I added additional layer with more mirror and flips and even some rotates, its up to you how you want to do things, and how many layers you want to make.
Just play and see how it looks!

TOPAZ - GLOW
One last little thing I did for this image was to take and Duplicate all these layers, and MERGE THEM into 1 layer
Then I take that layer into Toapz Lab's Glow and add some cool "Fur and Feathers" to it, bring it back into PS and changed it to 50% Opacity.

Result:

Would love for you to post your Twirls!

Enjoy,
David