Creating a Spiral in Photoshop using Transform Again

(c) 2005 Hanford Lemoore
last changed: 04/12/2005

This is a quick tutorial on how to use Transform Again to create a spiral or swirl effect in Photoshop. Someone asked how to do it in the Photoshop forums so I came up with this page.

Most versions of Photoshop. I believe I was using this back in the 4.0 or 5.0 days.

First, create a piece of your spiral on a new layer. You just need a short piece because it will be repeated later.

Offset it from your desired center point. In the graphic below, the center point is defined by the 2 intersecting guides:

Take a Snapshot in the History palette, as the next set of steps will need some exprimentation, and is bound to clog up your history palette.

Next, select a rectangular marquee around your spiral piece, then press CTRL-ALT-T to issue the Transform with Copy command. Note: this is different than the normal Transform command in that it leaves the original in it's place, and copys to the new layer. As far as I know, the keyboard command is the only way to issue it.

While in the Transform mode, move the pivot point to the desired center point, like so: (Note: it does not matter if the pivot point is inside or outside the selection. In the example below it's inside)

Next, rotate the Transform bounding box slightly so that it still overlaps the original. You don't want to do it too much; the less you rotate it the smoother the spiral will be.

Also, set the W and H scale to be slightly smaller than 100%. I used 99% in the example below, but even small changes like 99.5 or 99.7 can work too. This number will affect the tightness of your spiral.

Note: make sure the lock icon is turned on so that both the H and W are scaled the same.

Confirm the Transform by pressing Enter.

To create the spiral press CTRL-ALT-SHIFT-T repeatedly. This is perform the Transform Again with Copy. You'll see the spiral take form:

Continue to press the keys. As you continue, you'll see it is slightly shrinking. The tightness of the spiral is defined by the H and W scale you set on the original Transform (a smaller percentage is a looser spiral, a larger one is tighter).

Keep pressing until you're done.

If you don't like the spiral, revert to the snapshot and try again with new values.

I'm interested to hear whether or not this is useful, and what you're using it for.

If you have comments, Feel fee to contact me.

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