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Tip #28 Force Lightning Photo (Photoshop 7)
By: Tedric GarrisonNothing says villain like some cool lightning coming from the fingertips. Like the Light
saber tip before this; since your main effect is dealing with light, it will always look better (or at least more intense) on a darker background.
First step is to open your main image.
Step 2 Open a new document with a size of 500x200 and using the gradient tool (sixth item down on the right side of the tool bar.) apply a standard gradient fill. Note: this tool shares this space with the paint bucket, so if that is what you see first just click on the small triangle in the lower right corner.
Step 3 Open the filter menu from the top menu bar (5th from the far left) and scroll down until you see "render". Click it once then go over to "Difference Clouds" and
click again.
Step 4 On the Keyboard hold down the "Control" + the " I " key at the same time, this will invert the image and make it look similar to this example above.
Step 5 On the Keyboard hold down the "Control" + the "L" key at the same time, this will bring up the Levels Dialog box. Under the graph section there is a slider bar tool,
place the pointer on the middle arrow and slide it all the way to the right, then click OK.
Step 6 Rotate your newly created lightning to the direction you need. Go over to the Layers Dialog box and in the first drop down box make sure that "Screen" is selected.
At this point you can drag the lighting over and place directly in line with the finger tips that you want to use.
Step 7 When you get the lighting in the right position you want, you need to go back into that layer and erase the extra dark around the lightning itself. I will usually turn off the background (temporarily) to make it easier to see.
Steps 8 and 9 You can either create different lightning effect for each finger, or you can use the same one again and again. Either way, after you have them all placed and have done "step 7" for each of them, you can then color each of them by going into the Image Menu, down to adjustments, then over to color balance. Since each lightning is in its own layer you will have to do them all individually.
Step 10 After you get the colors the way you like it, don't forget to "flatten" the image (next to last selection under the Layer Menu) and save. Save as a different name than the original so you can go back and try multiple possibilities. Notice in the above photo
that the third lighting effect seems much less intense than the others, that is because of the light sky as background. All five of these lightings were done with the same level of color and darkness. So remember results will vary, greatly.
Photoshop Tip #28: Tedric Garrison tedric@betterphototips.com
