Step 21: Use "Transform Again" To Repeat The Rotation All Around The Document

A little known and therefore rarely used feature in Photoshop is Transform Again, which allows Photoshop to repeat the last transformation we made. We're going to use it to create the rest of our starburst background effect.

Any time you've used the Free Transform command, you have the option of repeating the transformation with Transform Again. If you go up to the Edit menu at the top of the screen and choose Transform, you'll see an option at the top of the next sub menu that says Again. Notice that the keyboard shortcut for the Transform Again command is Shift+Ctrl+T (Win) / Shift+Command+T (Mac). We're going to be using the keyboard shortcut because we need to access the command several times in a row in order to create our starburst. However, we also need to create a copy of our triangle each time we rotate it. To create the copy, we'll need to add the Alt (Win) / Option (Mac) key into the keyboard shortcut. So, to create a copy of the triangle and rotate it at the same time using Transform Again, press Shift+Ctrl+Alt+T (Win) / Shift+Command+Option+T (Mac). A copy of the triangle will appear in the document and it will be rotated an additional 45 degrees:

Continue pressing Shift+Ctrl+Alt+T (Win) / Shift+Command+Option+T (Mac), adding another rotated copy of the triangle each time, until you've created the starburst effect all around the document:

If we look in our Layers palette, we can see that we now have a Shape layer named "Shape 1" above the "Color Fill 1" layer, and we can see our starburst shape inside the layer's preview thumbnail:

Step 22: Hide The Shape Outlines

Notice how each of the triangles that makes up the starburst shape has an outline appearing around it? That's because the shape is currently active. To deactivate the shape and hide the outlines, simply click directly on the Shape layer's preview thumbnail (circled in red in the previous step). When a shape is active, you'll see a white highlight border around the shape layer's preview thumbnail, as you can see in the screenshot above. When you click on the preview thumbnail, the highight border disappears and the outlines will also disappear, leaving us with a much cleaner looking starburst effect.

I'm going to switch Photoshop back to the Standard View Mode, which will place my image back inside a floating document window, by pressing the letter F twice on my keyboard. If you're using Photoshop CS3, you'll need to press F three times to get back to the Standard View Mode, since CS3 includes an additional view mode that you'll need to cycle through. I'm also going to press Ctrl++ (Win) / Command++ (Mac) a couple of times to zoom in to my image and fill up the document window, removing all that extra gray area around the canvas:

Step 23: Change The Color Of The Shape Layer

At this point, the starburst effect itself is complete, but I'm not too happy with the color. I'd like to change the black to something a bit more exciting, like maybe a bright orange. Fortunately, changing the colors in the effect is easy. To change the color of the starburst shape, simply double-click directly on the Shape layer's color swatch:

This bring's up Photoshop's Color Picker. Choose a different color for your starburst shape. If you keep an eye on your image in the document window, you'll see a preview of what the colors will look like as you select them. I'm going to choose a bright orange:

Click OK once you've chosen a new color to exit out of the Color Picker. Here's my starburst effect after having swapped the black for orange:

You can change the background color for the effect just as easily. Simply double-click directly on the "Color Fill 1" color swatch in the Layers palette:

This will again bring up the Color Picker, allowing you to choose a new color for the background. My background is currently yellow, but I think I'm going to change it to green. In fact, I'm also going to go back and change the color of the starburst shape by double-clicking on its color swatch once and choosing a new color from the Color Picker. I'll choose a blue this time. Here's the exact same starburst background effect again, this time using green for the background color and blue for the starburst shape:

You can also try using two shades of the same color, rather than two separate colors:

As you can see, you can easily change the look of the background any time you want by selecting whichever colors work best for the project you're working on.

Since we've created our starburst background effect as a shape in Photoshop, why not make things really easy on ourselves and save it as a Custom Shape! That way, we'll be able to reuse the shape any time we need it without having to redo all the steps! We'll look at how to do that next.