Photoshop user

This is the first step in creating light effects in photoshop. We need to build and control soft streaks that is our electric bolts, or whatever you like to think of them. Lets practice the important basics!

Step 1. Create a new practice dokument like the image size picture below: _{(my settings is adjusted to this blogs width)}
We will be using white brushes so go ahead and make the background layer black.

Step 2. Create a new layer. On that layer - make two white dots with a round brush, size about 80 px and 50% hardness. Just make your dots fuzziness look similar to mine. These dots are the sources of our electic lightstreaks.

Step 3. Now we need to make some cool streaks using a white brush. Apply these brush settings before we paint light:

Step 4. Now its time to create our magic lightning! First create a new layer. This part is easy, just draw the brush as you feel the charges would travel between each other. At first it looks clumsy but dont worry, we will soon apply the magic to get that electric look. Feel free to experiment with sizes and hardness of the brush. Dont go too close with your lines. This is what i did. I use a regular mouse when i draw.

Drawing lightning can be done in several different ways, this is one of them. A tutorial about alternative ways to draw lightstreaks.

Step 5. Ok - time for magic! This is simple, we will use a standard photoshop filter named “Maximum”. Path: Filter –> Other –> Maximum. This filter is applied to your lightsteak layer! Try some filter settings here as you wish. 5 will create thicker streaks and 8 will make some really thin lines. TIP: if you choose a real thin line, like 7, you can duplicate that layer and merge two layers to gain contrast while still using a very thin line.

Anyway, this is my result. Look at the different thickness, sharpness and smoothing the filter creates - interesting!

Step 6. This is starting to look quite cool, but - lets take this one step further and give our lines some life! Merge your streak layer with your layer with the two dots. Then choose Edit –> Transform –> Warp. Play around with it, try to get most density in the middle and see to that your streaks come frome the edges.

I applied about 10 different forces in the warp grid to get this result:

See how simple that is, now try diffrent settings and make your lights come to life! Note that we only used greyscale doing this. My next tutorials will take this to the next level and we will create some beautiful lightstreaks in photoshop with vivid colors and some brush effects you might find cool. Practice control and play with it to get your streaks behave exactly like you want.

I used this technique when i did this composition: Click to zoom!

I hope you find my tutorial useful because this is the very first i have done. I have no idea if anyone is watching this so feel free to give me feedback in comments. Thanks for watching!