How to Create Intense Light Streaks in Photoshop
A couple of subscribers left their comment on a previous post that collated a range of inspiring graphic artwork from digital artists across the world. The commentors asked how the light stream effect on some of the pieces was created. I did a little research and picked up a couple of tips from similar tutorials to present a walkthrough on how to create intense light streaks flowing around an object or person.
Firstly find a subject to base the flowing light streams on. I picked out an image of a drinks can to relate to the original piece of artwork that inspired the subscriber.
Using the Pen Tool draw a path around the object, make the selection and paste into a new document using a black background.
Reselect the object by CMD/CTRL + Click on the layer, go to Select > Feather and enter 1px. Inverse the selection and hit delete.
Duplicate the layer and set the layer style to Multiply, drop the Opacity to suit.
These tips help the object blend with the background a little more realistically by erasing out the hard edges and altering the lighting and shadows.
On a new layer draw a circular marquee and add a Gradient fading to black with a colour of your choice, here I’ve chosen a cool green.
Transform the gradient and squash it vertically to add a little perspective.
Open up some kind of texture and paste it into the document. This particular image is a watercolour texture from the GoMedia Freebies. Desaturate to remove the colour.
Change the blending mode to Multiply to render the white areas of the texture transparent.
Back on the can or object layer add an Outer Glow through the Layer Styles, the key is to change the blending mode to Color Dodge to give a really intense glow.
Prepare a brush for creating the flowing light streams, experiment with the brush settings to give a thin tapered stroke. The main option to adjust is the Control and Minimum Diameter settings in the Shape Dynamics section.
Use the Pen Tool to draw a smooth flowing path, with the Pen Tool still selected right click and select Stroke Path, ensure the Brush option is selected along with Simulate Pressure.
Add another Outer Glow to the layer of the brush stroke using similar Color Dodge settings.
Draw as many streams as you like around the object, keeping the lines flowing as smoothly as possible in a variety of directions.
The Color Dodge effect works the best when the objects overlap the coloured gradient, here I scale up the gradient to allow for more light effects around the object.
Unfortunately the straight edges of the texture layer show through, use a large eraser to blend them out.
Add a little atmosphere to the object by placing a few blobs of colour on a new layer. Changing the blending mode to Soft Light will give a slight green glow to the object as if it is reflecting the green light from the intense glowing lines, overall adding a little more realism.
Make a selection from the object layer, inverse and delete out the unwanted area.
The light streams look okay flowing out from underneath the object but they would look a little better if they interacted in some way. Move the light stream layer above the object.
Erase out the majority of the lines leaving select areas which blend into or around the object.
A common addition to this trendy style is an array of glowing light particles. Setup another brush, this time play around with the Scatter, Spacing and Size Jitter options.
Brush in a range of dots and blobs with varying brush sizes to cover the whole of the object and flowing lines. Add the same Outer Glow layer style as the light stream layer.
Erase out the most of the particles to leave a subtle effect with slight differences in opacity.
Finish off the image with a few focal rings on multiple layers with very low opacity. These help relate to the objects that appear when photographing light with a camera, adding a little extra realism.
March 10th, 2008 at 10:52 pm
thanks a lot.
I’ve found another tutorial wich is completly different but with the same result. i will try this one too. this effect is finaly simple to realise.
Thanks again
March 10th, 2008 at 11:44 pm
Hello Mr Spoon,
Great touches. I really like the way you used the selection tool to create the camera lens blur with opacity effect sweet. Ive been playing around with this technique for some time always a little belter
Heres a promo I did a couple of weeks ago
Take care
Mali
March 11th, 2008 at 12:19 pm
Another sweet tutorial. Very cool techniques to create the light streaks and light particles. Thanks!
March 11th, 2008 at 9:51 pm
so sick man !!! awesome !!!
thanks
March 12th, 2008 at 12:47 am
Fantastic tutorial: Real quality. Thank you for sharing your techniques. It’s genuinely appreciated.
March 12th, 2008 at 6:21 pm
Ah yeah ! great
March 12th, 2008 at 9:53 pm
Is this Tutorial for CS3 only? tried this in CS and some features aren’t working….. Will it work at least in CS2?
March 13th, 2008 at 5:01 am
Could you give us some details on how to set up the brush for the flowing light streams? I couldn’t get a pretty brush
March 13th, 2008 at 7:56 am
Fantastic tutorial: Real quality
March 13th, 2008 at 8:33 am
Thanks for sharing! This is great, I mean amazing
March 13th, 2008 at 11:04 am
Very cooll !
March 13th, 2008 at 10:34 pm
Nice and simple!!
March 14th, 2008 at 6:21 am
Your work is inspiring, your tutorials are the most useful ever! thanks bunches!~
March 14th, 2008 at 5:17 pm
Ok, really cool effects, but you should have pasted another screenshot of yor brush settings, i couldn’t get a good one :/
But thanks for a great guide anyway, it could have been more detailed though.
March 15th, 2008 at 1:57 pm
hi
I’m korea girl.
nice to me to
your tutorials very good!
March 18th, 2008 at 1:40 am
Wow.
That’s pretty awesome.
Honestly, I think that Photoshop is very easy to use.
You just need to know what to do, to make things look good.
And you, my friend, you know.
March 23rd, 2008 at 4:05 am
Hey i thought this was a great tut but something you should consider is not everyone knows as much as you high level designers. I have been confused through so much of this and it has stressed me out. I catch on quick but i just cant seem to get it down. Other than that this is a great great tut and the resualts were just amazing. Keep up this amazing work and i wil keep posted for more!
March 30th, 2008 at 2:42 pm
very nice
April 1st, 2008 at 4:57 pm
you need to be more detailed, most of us arent professional designers
April 1st, 2008 at 10:27 pm
Cool! Nicely done.
April 2nd, 2008 at 3:24 am
this is great!
April 7th, 2008 at 7:25 am
thanks alot
April 8th, 2008 at 5:00 pm
nice
April 8th, 2008 at 7:44 pm
trying but cant get the flowing light streams, can anyone help me? I use the pen tool and created a smooth flowing path, but when I right click I cannot select Stroke Path? what am I doing wrong?
April 9th, 2008 at 2:55 am
Fun! I chose purple.
April 9th, 2008 at 5:42 pm
Hi, good tips but i only recently got Photoshop, can sum1 pllz send me a step by step version of this guide. This is a good guide only i dont know how to do many of the things on this guide. Can sum1 send me a step by step version pllz? What i meen by step by step is: layer–> arrange–> send to back etc.
My email is:
jonny9080@hotmail.com
Thx again
April 9th, 2008 at 5:47 pm
cool, cool,
but make a movie clip? kinda hard to understand by reading
April 11th, 2008 at 9:59 pm
exelente 1000 gracias
April 17th, 2008 at 3:22 pm
This was a great tutorial
Ive been looking for a this exact one and it was really helpfull
id say im pretty great with my pen tool now
so thank you
April 18th, 2008 at 12:10 am
This needs to be much more detailed for people who aren’t very good with Photoshop yet.
April 18th, 2008 at 12:58 am
like Richard Said…
“…I use the pen tool and created a smooth flowing path, but when I right click I cannot select Stroke Path? what am I doing wrong?”
Pls and thankyou.
April 30th, 2008 at 1:54 pm
Great job! shame, not enough details.
May 2nd, 2008 at 5:06 am
great work!
May 3rd, 2008 at 10:49 pm
Wow wonderfull effects,thx
May 4th, 2008 at 10:51 am
HAHA This are not photoshop u make me sick..!!
not realistic tutorial.. maybe this are adobe after effects with trapcode 3d stroke , particular or shine effects.. this is a fake ,make noob us all.. xHEHE=)
May 9th, 2008 at 11:46 pm
This “are” too photoshop dummy. With photoshop the possiblitlities are endless.
and the “shine effects” are used with the color dodge blending mode. why is that so hard to understand? Try it for yourself dodo!
Great tut btw
May 14th, 2008 at 1:20 pm
Wow!I’ve to try it!
Really nice
May 21st, 2008 at 3:10 pm
i dont understand
for me,its to complicated!!!!
but nice output though
May 27th, 2008 at 2:14 pm
Whoa man, I’m totally shocked. It always seemed so untouchable –these techniques and tricks to create such amazing effects–, but you brought it a little closer.
Reading the tutorials like this, slowly I’ll become able to realize my ideas.
Thank you very much!
June 4th, 2008 at 7:02 am
damn… i cant make it.. can u make it step by step… or put the name where to click……..
June 6th, 2008 at 5:08 am
nice tut!!….but the part of making a smooth line in brush is really tricky i think you missed to make a few more steps in that section (explaining how to make the right click and the stroke part). please if yo can make an adition or send to my email it will be great.!!
keep the good work!!!!
June 10th, 2008 at 6:22 am
can you give me the background color code please ?
June 11th, 2008 at 4:33 pm
great work!
June 12th, 2008 at 11:46 pm
brilliant tutorial!!!! im an avid fan of spoongraphics tuts easy to follow if your an intermediate user of photoshop bit harder for a beginner mind
July 9th, 2008 at 9:57 pm
I can’t seem to get my brush to take that tapered shape for the streaks, despite using “fade” and “minimum diameter” in the “shape dynamics” section. Am I doing it wrong?
July 12th, 2008 at 9:03 am
awesome mannnnnnnnnn!!^^
tanx
July 14th, 2008 at 8:44 am
cool tutorial…
its really help a lot…
thnx thnx
July 16th, 2008 at 10:38 pm
Wow great tutorial
July 17th, 2008 at 5:40 am
hmm.. it’s good tutorial.. thanks in tutoring me sir!! ^^
July 23rd, 2008 at 8:26 pm
Thanks
July 29th, 2008 at 9:10 am
it’s.. so cooll..
thanzzz for your inspiration..
July 30th, 2008 at 6:07 pm
Wow. Pretty cool tutorial. I love it!
Thank you very much
August 4th, 2008 at 11:03 pm
Nice tutorial.. well appreciated.. some more detail could have helped the non designers.
jus for non designers
open a blank file
create a path> go to paths palette>
right click on the workpath> stroke path> check the simulate pressure> and you are done.. [use hard edge brush]
Hope it helps some one..
August 7th, 2008 at 12:32 am
awesome! thanks
August 7th, 2008 at 7:56 am
Works great with Gimp as well!
http://gimp.org/
August 18th, 2008 at 8:03 pm
hello great turorial,
i made this in real time in front of the camera.
http://www.lapp-pro.de
the technique is named Light Art Performance Photography, short LAPP.
September 7th, 2008 at 7:38 am
It’s very nice.
September 23rd, 2008 at 5:58 am
Great touches. I really like the way you used the selection tool to create the camera lens blur with opacity effect sweet. Ive been playing around with this technique for some time always a little belte
September 24th, 2008 at 8:18 pm
Cause so many people say that this tutorial is to completed, you should make a video to show how you created these effects. That way the viewer will be able to follow exactly what you are doing, where the tools are, and how to use all the tools. use an idea.
really good tutorial
s
September 26th, 2008 at 6:12 pm
Brilliant job..thnx a lot.!!!!!
October 5th, 2008 at 6:46 pm
i got excellent results playing around with this tutorial!! MUCHAS THANK YOU VERY MUCHO AMIGO!! i like the way you don’t give much details in each step, letting me experiment myself with my own settings, and hard to copy exactly your work… tutorials MUST BE that way, to make people try his own approach, not to COPY the exact same effect… GREAT!
October 7th, 2008 at 7:08 pm
Err yeah it’s a great tutorial, thing is as most have said some of us aren’t as advanced. The main issues I have are:
1). How does one use the pen tool?
2). How do you prepare your own brush?
Thanks a lot, I was able to get up to the bit before the light streaks otherwise
October 7th, 2008 at 9:33 pm
@ El Confuso:
How to use the pen tool and prepare your own brushes?
EASY!
just go to google.com and type “how to use pen tool photoshop” or :”photoshop pen tool tutorial” and so on…
i’ll try to get u some tutorials in both subjects, from the thousands of bookmarks i have, but.. in the meantime, try google. Works for me everytime!.. that’s how i found this blog anyawys… well..
October 7th, 2008 at 9:50 pm
I did for the pen, and found 3 and tried them but so far, I don’t find them that useful…
October 14th, 2008 at 11:40 am
That is very nice lights effects.
October 26th, 2008 at 7:23 am
sorry, i am extremely frustrated here.. you’ve lost me at this bit:
“On a new layer draw a circular marquee and add a Gradient fading to black with a colour of your choice, here I’ve chosen a cool green.
Transform the gradient and squash it vertically to add a little perspective.”
i’ve tried to do this but i don’t even get close to the results in the illustration. Please can you be a little more explicit in your instructions.
thx
October 27th, 2008 at 11:35 pm
This “are” too photoshop dummy. With photoshop the possiblitlities are endless.
and the “shine effects” are used with the color dodge blending mode. why is that so hard to understand? Try it for yourself dodo!
November 23rd, 2008 at 1:05 am
Great tutorial
November 27th, 2008 at 10:27 am
It is healthy, I shall come on your site more often, thank.,
November 27th, 2008 at 7:48 pm
Excellent site!,