Making Spotlight and Nova Effects In Photoshop..

Hey all,

I've been ALL over the web for tutorials on making lighting effects like the "spotlight" and "starbust" effects. Does ANYONE know of tutorials or can explain to me how to do lighting effects like these.....????

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Are you talking about the effect of shining a spotlight on something, or the atmospheric effect it creates in the sky? (or both)

Photoshop has a filter under the heading "Render", that is called "Lighting Effects", and creates a lot of different variations of light. Experiment with this filter, as it can produce a large number of lighting styles.

Starbusts would be fairly easy to construct with the pen tool, if you are familiar with the use of that tool, and then you can use a color fill and use some filter effects on it, or feather the edges.

You will need to layer your images, placing one image over another, to get these effects to look right.


Dale

Why, I’m afraid I can’t explain myself, sir, because I’m not myself, you know...
- Lewis Carroll

Hi,

I'm talking about the bursts of light behind the images of these artists on the top two pics ("Game Tyte" and "Game Related"). The spotlight I'm talking about is on the two bottom pics. In "Lil'Wayne's" cover, they're search lights, but, I want to create these too. In the bottom right pic ("Prime Time"), there's a spotlight on the artist.

I've tried to create these but, to no avail. This post was a last resort. I'll use some of your suggestions. Thanks for your time. [img]/infopop/emoticons/icon_smile.gif[/img]

Later
RJ

There are a few ways to do that RJ.

1 - Is to use the polygon lassoo and make a selection in the shape of your spotlight beam.Fill it with white and add some Gaussian blur,then set it to softlight or screen blend mode.


2 - Make a selection in the shape of your spotlight beam on your bg layer,then copy the slection to a new layer add a little g blur and set to screen or softlight etc.


3 - Make a slection like the shape of your spotlight beam and use a reflect gradient and blur and set to sofltlight or screen blend mode.


For the stars use your line tool and make a star type shape by making lines at different angles,then merge them all together and use g blur or motion blur.


For the circle spot shape use a round gradient and place that on top of a solid layer like blue in the image [img]/infopop/emoticons/icon_smile.gif[/img] ,and apply some blur if required and set to a blend mode of choice as well if required.


Try these ideas but just keep on experimenting [img]/infopop/emoticons/icon_smile.gif[/img] .......You can find some excellent tutes on how to do this sort of thing and more on Mark the Keepers guru site [img]/infopop/emoticons/icon_smile.gif[/img]


Cheers

Stu.

Ya, here RJ maybe this will help: http://photoshopgurus.info/beginners/starburst.shtml

Dale & Stu's suggestions for the spotlight effect are good too, try those. And Dale has the right idea about also using the Pen tool (Paths) to create a starburst effect.

My method of the starburst effect is a good one i believe, but not done using Paths.

Give all this stuff a go and you'll find out which you prefer to use. Some may work out better for you than others. [img]/infopop/emoticons/icon_wink.gif[/img]

"The lessons to be learned, are found along the path of your journey, not at your final destination. That is only where you will rest, between lessons"

Hey guys,

Thanks a lot. What would I do without ya!? [img]/infopop/emoticons/icon_smile.gif[/img]

RJ (Mr. Post-man):D