Butterfly Wings

Ok, first off. Create a canvas with a black background. Immediately create a New Layer. Then using the Pen Tool create a "leaf shape" like the one shown below.

Right click on the layer and choose Make Selection . Feather Radius must be 0 and the Anti-aliased box checked. Do not deselect just yet.

Next to do is to choose Select > Feather . In this example, I set the Feather Radius to 5 . You can set your own value or follow the one I used.

Delete the selection and you'll end up with this image.

Now, create duplicates of that "leaf shape" and rotate them to make a "fan". You can change the sizes and flip each part for contrast just like I did here.

For this part, I've hidden the other layers so that you can understand this particular procedure.

Duplicate one leaf part and Choose Filter > Blur > Motion Blur. Depending on the angle of the leaf you have, adjust the angle of the blur to about +/- 10 degrees and the distance to about 50 so that you have a blur that sort of extends outward to the borders of your main leaf. Look at the picture below to see what I mean.

Now do the same to each "leaf shape" I did at least 2 different angles of motion blurs to each shape. One slightly lighter than the other. When you're done, I suggest that you Merge the whole thing except the black background.

Once you're done merging, hold the CTRL key and click on the merged layer. Make a new layer again and choose the Color Gradient tool. You can use one of the standard colors there or make your own set of colors. Run the gradient in any direction you like.

Duplicate your Color layer and change the blend modes of both layers to Vivid light or Overlay . Whichever looks better.

You're done with one wing. Now for the other one.

Simply duplicate the whole layer (along with the color layers) and choose Edit > Transform > Distort . Adjust it until you're satisfied with how the second wing looks like.

Now here is how my butterfly wings look like! Don't worry about the blurs at the right side. It will disappear once the body is put in or some redered flares are in.

If you see some jagged edges on the wings, try using Filter > Blur > Gaussian Blur to smoothen the edges out.