In Tutorials Apr 29, 200848
How to Create Brilliant Light Streaks in Photoshop
Lighting effects have become quite popular, and are an effective way to add bright eye catching details to a photo or illustration. In this tutorial, you will learn a simple technique for creating brilliant light streaks which can be used in different ways to add motion and brightness to your designs.
Step 1
First, lets create a nice background for our effect. Open up a new Photoshop file, and fill the background with black. Now, create a new layer and fill it with white. We will use the Lighting Effects filter (Filters > Render > Lighting Effects) on this layer to create a nice soft gradient. Next to the Intensity slider, choose any color that you like as long as it is somewhat dark. For this example, I have chosen a dark pink/purple.
Step 2
Now lets create a light from which all of our streaks will be created. Start by creating a new layer and setting it’s blend mode to screen. Then use the Elliptical Marquee Tool to make a circular selection and Feather(Select > Modify > Feather) it with a value of 20 pixels. This will give our light a nice glow around the edges. Using the Radial Gradient Fill tool, we are going to give it some color and intensity. I like to use 3 colors for the gradient. The first and inner most color should be white or something close to it. Make sure to start the fill in the middle of your selection and end it a the edge.
Step 3
Make a copy of the light layer that we just created, and hide the original. You will need it later to make additional streaks. Now, lets scale(Edit > Transform > Scale) the light so that it is much flatter. Doing this allows you to control the thickness of your streak.
Step 4
Now we get to start having fun. To give our light that streak look there are two filters we can use: Wave(Filter > Distort > Wave) and Twirl(Filter > Distort > Twirl). By using Wave, you can achieve some very nice looking irregular paths for your light. Like any other filter with sliders, it takes some tweaking to achieve the result you are after, but you will probably need to up the wave length and amplitude considerably. Also, try applying the Wave filter multiple times to the same layer.
The Twirl filter will give you a streak that is moving in a more radial type of path.
Also, don’t be afraid to combine the two. By doing so you will be adding more detail to each streak, and making the overall effect more interesting.
48 Comments
Apr 29, 2008
A very simple yet powerful effect, thanks!
Apr 29, 2008
really nice effect!
Apr 29, 2008
nice one, dude!!!
Apr 29, 2008
nice tutorial! looks good.
May 1, 2008
Hey, nice tutorial. I’ll try this out and see what else I can apply it too. Would be good for smaller images and icon backgrounds as it is quite eye catching.
Thanks,
May 1, 2008
very cool tutorial, thanks for this!!
May 6, 2008
Awesome simple yet eye-catching effect. I hope to use it in one of my sites
Thank you-
May 7, 2008
[...] friend Henry Jones has whipped up an amazingly simple but effective Photoshop tutorial on creating dramatic light streaks. The end result could be used for anything from desktop wallpapers to website background [...]
May 8, 2008
Really cool effect, thanks for sharing
May 12, 2008
Amazing how simple it is to achieve this effect. Great tutorial, thanks!
May 12, 2008
Thats a brilliant tutorial there, shows how easy Photoshop can be… I can’t afford the software, but this will be good to know if I get to use it at school.
May 12, 2008
That’s a very nice effect, and very well explained. Gonna have a play
May 13, 2008
Good site I “Stumbledupon” it today and gave it a stumble for you.. looking forward to seeing what else you have..later
May 13, 2008
I’ve never seen it done that way. Very cool. Thanks.
May 13, 2008
thank u gr8 effect
May 14, 2008
Very cool, stumbled.
May 14, 2008
Well Done.
May 14, 2008
That’s pretty nifty. I’m gonna try it and see how mine comes out.
May 15, 2008
On my Photoshop program, the Lighting Effects doesn’t work. When i am on render under filter, the lighting effects letters are not black, however they are a translucent grey.
May 15, 2008
love the effect.
May 16, 2008
the effect only works on RGB images for those of you who can’t use photoshop help
May 17, 2008
Wow, really nice effect. I never thought it would be so simple to create these streaks.
May 17, 2008
Awesome Tutorial! The possibilities of what you can achieve with this simple technique is endless. Thanks for posting this.
May 17, 2008
Nice, I usually use the pen tool to make streaks of light, I think I can use this.
May 17, 2008
Nice tutorial.
Stumbled it!
May 21, 2008
great effect.
but im having a problem at step 4
ive shrunk the thing down to narrow and thin(ish) and then when i try and apply any effects it doesnt do it. well it does do it, but they have no noticeable affect (the white bit gets a little bit blurred at the most). anyone care to shed some light?
thanks in advance,
regards john.
May 22, 2008
cancel that last comment
i’d just shrunk the thing too much. works fine now
stumbling it now.
May 22, 2008
john,
Glad to hear that you figured it out.
May 22, 2008
Sick tutorial, great effect = love it! Thank you for taking the time to show us the process.
May 25, 2008
nice one..you could just twirl a rectangle to get a similar effect, but the varying pressure in this one makes it much better! thnx..
chk out my blog too if anyone is interested in wallpapers and tutorials.. mind it i am still an amateur!!
[thephotoshopper(dot)blogspot(dot)com]
May 26, 2008
this is great, i just hope that no one over uses it…but alas…it will most likely happen.
May 27, 2008
Nice technique, I have been looking for something like this for a while. Good stuff!
May 28, 2008
What a simple way… thanx!
May 28, 2008
Nice one, simple but very cool!
Jun 2, 2008
Great, thanks!
Jun 2, 2008
Cool! Thanks! I’ll definitely use the technique you described for creating wavy lines.
Jun 5, 2008
nice
Jun 14, 2008
hey henry,
at step 4 im on the copied layer and i want to apply the filter (filter > distort) but under distort the only active option is “lens correction”? cant select anything else (wave/twirl)
loving the effect though, once completed..
hahah
Jun 14, 2008
Hey,
This is awesome!
Great!
Jun 18, 2008
ohh man i know i will sound a lil noob
bt m nt geting the secon step.plz help
Jun 25, 2008
Very nice tutorial, thanks I learned something new
Jul 1, 2008
Good and easy effect thx again
Jul 6, 2008
Hi. I cant find the Elliptical Marquee Tool for step 2. I have Adobe CS 2, does that matter? I cant find it T_T
Jul 7, 2008
very nice but i have one problem on step2… where can i find the Radial Gradient Fill tool?
thx
Jul 7, 2008
@Tom - If you click on the Rectangular Marquee Tool, you will see the Elliptical Marque along with some others.
@jookeer - If you click on the Gradient Tool in the tool bar, you will find the Radial Gradient Tool at the top.
Hope that helped.
Aug 2, 2008
Wow i like it it’s so cool I did one But i don’t Look the same!!
http://i248.photobucket.com/albums/gg162/machbr10/Twril.jpg
Aug 3, 2008
I’ve go a problem with step 2.
How do you change the color of the radial gradient tool ?
I clicked on ‘gradient tool’ on the left,
then, on the upper part of the screen, I clicked on ‘radial gradient’
If I drag a line, I just get a white light there…
Help would be much appreciated because I’m new with photoshop.
Aug 11, 2008
Simply S U P E R B….
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