DIY Prism/Flare Filter for $10

Hi everyone,

I’m sure some of you have also seen the post about those ‘artistic’ lens filters which were posted earlier this week on fstoppers, dpreview and petapixel. I actually think the effect of the prism filters looks kind of cool but I don’t want to spent 75€ on a filter which I would only be using very rarely anyway. As I was reading through the comments a few people suggested to just build the filter yourself by using a cheap UV filter and adding some rhinestones to it and that’s what I did. So here’s a recap of the process and I also want to provide the overlays I ended up with (but more on this later):

1. Bought a cheap UV Filter and some rhinestones on Amazon (actually did end up not using the rhinestones because they had an opaque surface on the bottom, instead used glass)
2. Shattered the glass of an old frame with a hammer until I had a lot of small little pieces
3. Attached the filter to a lens (so I know which side of the filter is up)
4. Now I picked up smaller pieces of the glass and used a brush to add a little bit of glue to each piece which I then placed in the upper area of the filter (by placing them in the upper part the flare effect will be more visible _I think_ )
5. Every now and then I tested the look of it by pointing my camera in a bright light source and moving it around (with different focal lengths and focus)
6. Once I was satisfied I also wanted to create overlays with this effect, so I don’t have to carry this filter with me all the time, but instead can apply this effect in Photoshop
7. To make those overlay presets I grabbed a black blanket which I placed behind some bright lights and captured some photos / videos while pointing the camera at the blanket. This is important so you later end up with a black background while the flare effect is visible over the background!
8. Now when I want to add the flare effect to my image I simply place the overlay over it in Photoshop and change the blending mode to something like screen. Depending on the darkness of the background it might be a good idea to adjust the levels of the flare layer a bit.

If you want to play around with this effect but don’t want to spend any money you can just use my overlays which I have shot yesterday! You can download them here: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/10UoaJgaevpvIUDB3vL5cw1WwD9C6C4N8?usp=sharing

If you want to see the ‘building’ process I also uploaded a Video of it here