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

Some info behind this shot:

CONCORD CITY HALLTOPAZ IMPRESSION 2

Taken from the parking deck across the street.
Had to get creative on using my tripod to get over the 5 foot + wall and not get that wall in my shot.
Used my 10-24mm lens - perfect for these shots.
 

This image is a combination of the following (3) Exposure shots:
BASE IMAGE   +2 STEPS (EXPOSURES) -2 STEPS (EXPOSURES)
Camera Model Name : NIKON D7200
Focal Length             : 11.0 mm
Shutter Speed?(s)     : 2 / 0.5 / 8 seconds
Aperture                   : 14.0
ISO                           : 200

These were taken into EasyHDR and combined to form the following shot:

EasyHDR Combined shotEasyHDR Combined shot

From this shot I did a little playing in PS (light/color/etc).  Then moved it into Topaz Impression, and applied a setting i have been using on a lot of my shots (one I made) based on one of the presets (Georgia O'Keefe).

I use this to "smooth" out the harshness of the HDR and (to me) it gives it a little something, not sure what.

Decided to go out in the super humid and warm night and play a little with some Light Painting.

To do this you need a few things. 

• Good Tripod
• Camera that can do long exposures - ie 15-30 seconds at least
• remote trigger release of some kind
• light source(s) - flashlight, flash, glow sticks, etc.
• willing participant(s) - sometimes its nice to have multiple people to help
• a dark location - sometimes the darker the better
• patience

My son and I went out to a closed road near a lake.  Got the tripod setup, used the flashlight and other lights to locate where to set him up, and to light him so I could get him in focus. We decided to try a "beam up" kind of thing, with him on his phone calling his spaceship to beam him up.

The process would be as follows:

• Alex would stand as still as possible
• I had the camera set to a 25 second exposure - iso 100 or so, f3 on the 35mm prime 
• With a 2 second pause after i remotely fire the trigger
• Fire the trigger, all lights off
• Do a quick light on him to make sure he was lit from head to toe - basicly use the flashlight to light him up.
• I had 2 flashlights - one was a very bright LED and the other was a strange little one that had 3 moveable head with lights.
• Run around Alex in circles moving the lights from feet to head and above.
• Check camera see what things looked like
  
  • mine had noise reduction on - helps a lot - and it takes a while to bring up the image
  • check the image, zoom in, see how in focus things are
• try again 

Did this a few times - each time can take 5+ mins just to check and setup.  We tried several other shots as well (check them here).

OUT OF CAMERA IMAGE

OUT OF CAMERANo editing at all

No editing at all on this yet. you can see my ghosts in there, and its a little too bright and needs some more shadows, etc.
You can really see my head/face/glasses on the right next to Alex's head.

AFTER LIGHTROOM ADJUSTMENTS

CLEANED UPSome basic cleanup

Lots of playing in lightroom, darkening areas where my ghosts were, playing with the sliders for highlight, shadow, etc. trying to get it as clean as i could.

INITIAL BEAM UP

INITIAL BEAMINGCleaned up, but not exactly what I was going for.

Cropped and a little more playing, and a little stamp brush in PS.

FINAL BEAM UP

BEAMING#LightPainting #roco #clouds #startrek #beammeup #toocool @startrek

LOTS more here. 

• Took a section from the zoomed out photo and added it to the bottom of this cropped section
• faded it out and Alex's middle with it.  Giving it the look of him beaming out
• used some brushes to keep his arm/elbow in solid
• made a duplicate of the orig layer, took it into Topaz Glow added some neon to the lights
• made another duplicate of the orig layer, took that one into Glow and used Fur and Feathers (25% or so) to give things a little more texture
• blended them all back together, with a mask & brush
• back to lightroom for some more highlight/shadow cleanup.

What do you think?  I love trying new things out, seeing how they come out, learning all the time!

Thanks for checking this out.  If you are interested in a shot like this of you let me know!

David