Hi all I am in need of some help. I know this really isn't a bryce question and i have posted this in the photoshop forum - i post here because alot of bryce artists use 2d apps to enhance their byrce renders. I was just wondering how would i go about creating the effect of trailing fairy dust that travels behind a flying fairy (in PS). 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 a effect. Something like a twinkling, sparkling trail that follows behind. What tools or filters etc in PS could be used? Anyone have any ideals or know of some tutorial for this type of work. Any help is most appreciated and thanks in advance.

It is easy to do especially if you have KPT plugins for photoshop. Just use the lensflare plugin to add a binch of tiny flares to follow your character. Bryce does not have a particle system and no advanced lighting so glows and the like are much harder. With out the KPT plugin you will have to paint in eack little particle by hand and apply gradient glows, and streaks to each.

Bryce allows you to use Photoshop plugs within it as well maybe saving you sometime.

I'd go with lotsa little lense flares, or a mask/channel/layer or whatever of the dust, and use Eyecandy, "Gradient-Glow" (the latest version) on it, or a combination of the 2... you could also make a 2d pic of your dust, (just the dust), with an alpha channel to seperate it from the backgroud, and import it, and use it on a Bryce 2D pict object so it can be rendered with the actual scene, and also therefore it could be positioned however you wanted in the scene. Also Bryce (if you have updated/patched it), may well be capable of doing a dust effect using volumetric textures, but you would still have to add any sparkles or pinpoint shine using a flare or glow plugin or something...Hope this helps. PS: I would have to recommend KPT6/extreme or whatever its called for lenz flare effects.

PPS: If you want to know more about any of these ideas or how-to, let me know by email, with specific questions ect...

Attached Link: http://www.weirdass.net

Don't know how this will turn out for ya, but off the top of me head- Create a series of radial gradients on a new layer in photoshop. general size and shape of your dust cloud. Copy it to the clipboard, paste into a new doc. Convert to bitmap, pretty coarse setting. Convert it back to rgb, motion blur of about 10. Invert it, and paste it over your image (new layer) set to color dodge about 5-15%. Repeat layering and blurring. Also try a layer set to screen with the dodge layer over it for a cloudy effect. Good luck Mitch

Axion lense flare 2 is a freebie on the axion site. It has a bug in that when you get the flare just where you want it in the small window, it shows up differently in the image. The fix is to immediately undo, go back to axion, and reposition it. The second shot will be exactly where you want it. You might use a masking tool to select a portion of the layer where you want the flare to show. Another trick would be to mask the area and just use a blur or gausian filter. Axion or the tricks that others suggested above would be better.