Hi all I am in need of some help. I was just wondering how would go about creating the effect of trailing fairy dust that travels behind a flying fairy. Im trying to create that sense or feeling of magic. I have a pic that has a fairy flying and i need to know where i would begin in creating such an effect. Something like a twinkling, sparkling trail that follows behind. Anyone have any ideals or know of some tutorial for this type of work. Any help is most appreciated and thanks in advance.

Attached Link: http://www.eccentrix.com/misc/wonderzombie/index.html

Here's how I would do it... Use a brush that's got some sort of nice dotty texture to it. (in 6.0, the faux finish brushes work nicely) Add a new layer. Draw the basic shape of the trail. Don't worry if it overlaps parts of the fairy. You can erase the parts you don't want later. Use whatever color you want it to be when it's finished, only darker. (so if you want shiny glittery blue, use navy blue for now...) Now, use the blur tool (not the filter. it should be irregular) over the grainy dot stuff you just made. Once it's blurred, go over it with the dodge tool (set to midtones) using the same (or a similar) brush as the one you used before. Change the layer mode to something like "screen" or "color dodge". Now use the eraser tool (set to less than 100% pressure) to fade out the effect as neccessary. If it's too overbearing, adjust the layer transparency. That should pretty much do it.