DPReview.com is closing April 10th - Find out more

Too much retouched?

Started Sep 9, 2007 | Discussions thread
Pam R Veteran Member • Posts: 3,421
Light rays workflow...

Here's how I did the light rays. You can do them in the image you're working on, but I created mine as a new image:

1 - open a new layer. Fill with 50% gray:

2 - Go to Filter> Noise> Add noise and use these settings:

3 - Go to Filters> Blur> Motion blur and use these settings (for larger sizes you will need to run the filter again by hitting Ctrl+F until you get clear lines). Ctrl+F applies the previously used filter again (very handy to keep in your list of shortcuts):

4 - Now to give some shape to the rays. Hit Ctrl+A or Select> All. Then Ctrl+T to enter Transform mode. Hover your cursor inside the bounding box and right-click to pull up the transform options. Choose "Perspective". Or, you can go to Edit> Transform> Perspective:

5 - grab a bottom corner handle and pull out. Grab a top corner handle and push towards the middle to get a shape similar to this:

6 - Copy the rays (Select> All, Edit> Copy merged). Paste into your image (Ctrl+V) and move it into position. Add a layer mask, invert the mask (Ctrl+I), then paint white to reveal the rays:

7 - Blur the rays to your taste using Gaussian blur. Experiment with blend modes. Screen, Soft Light, and Overlay are good starting points:

Have fun!

-- hide signature --

Pam
http://www.pbase.com/pam_r
'art is working on something 'til you like it...then leaving it that way'

Post (hide subjects) Posted by
jgb
Keyboard shortcuts:
FForum PPrevious NNext WNext unread UUpvote SSubscribe RReply QQuote BBookmark MMy threads
Color scheme? Blue / Yellow