Hey all, I've been trying to emulate some different light effects, light bursts, and nova-type light effects. I was looking for someone that knew something about working with effects with light. Here are some examples. Check out the light effects behind a picture of the artists as well as the spotlight effects on the last picture. Does anyone have any tutorials on these???? Thankx. Mystro

Oops! I forgot to mention. Lil Wayne picture has light comming from the aircraft flying around him (Bottom left) I'm looking for tutorials on that also. Thanks again. Mystro

heh, I remember ya mystro... well, I'm not sure if there are any tutorials on stuff like this, but it's fairly easy to emulate. The top two pics have one type going, the bottom two, another. On the bottom two, you could prolly get the effect yer looking for by simply selecting a triangular type area, and then going to Image->Adjust->Brightness/Contrast, and playing with that. As for the lighting on the dudes themselves, that was likely done in the photo studio itself, not software. for the top two, you could probably emulate the bursts by making a nice little area around the guy's heads all in white, and then take your smudge tool and pulling it out as you go. You might also be able to get effects like that with lens flare filters, but they can look really shitty.

also, if you wanna get it done tightly, do what I told ya to, and then go in close up to get everything as exact as you want it. The only way to go.

hmm...you might want to try this as well. Duplicate whatever layer you want to have the lighthing effects. Change the levels or just contrast/brightness so you increase the pics contrast a LOT, making the highlights really bright. Then go to Filter->Blur->Radial Blur and choose Zoom in the options instead of Spin. Make it a large zoom. This creates sort of a lightcreasing effect. You might also change the layers blending mode to Screen and adjust further it's opacity and contrast. With masking and further copies of the original layer you could create an effect like on those top posters. For the bottom posters just create a new layer, make a selection with 1-2 pixels feather, and then use the gradient tool to create the light.

for a perfectly circular halo with streaks as in teh first pic, follow the steps below (they take a little experimenting to get right): 1> Select a perfectly square selection of the area in which you want the light with the centre of the light as the centre of your selection. Copy it. 2> Paste it in a new file (when you say File -> New, Photoshop automatically opens up a file with the same size as the size copied). 3> Fill a little more than half of the canvas with white (bottom to top). Apply Distort -> Wave (repeat edge pixels and horizontal - 0%) filter with wavelength set to a whole number factor of the image size. 4> Reapply the filter if longer streaks are desired (ensure that the white doesn't run off the canvas at the top. 5> Apply Gaussian Blur of about 5.0 in Screen blend mode. 6> Apply Distort->Polar Coordinates (Rectangular to Polar). 7> If required, apply zoom or spin Radial Blur (again in Screen mode), or even another round of Gaussian Blur to soften edges. 8> Make multiple layers and play about with colour, saturation and blending alongwith blur to get your perfect halo! That should do it. Post another thread if any more clarification is required. But follow my instructions to teh last word, and I promise you'll have a better halo than the one in your pic! Have fun! Oh! You'll have to clear out the face part or whatever from the halo manually with and eraser or mask!

For the second sort (as in the 3rd and 4th pics), select the part intended too become the spot and copy it into a new layer. Pump up the Brightness. With a large, soft brush, erase the sharp edges to blend in smoothly with the layers below. Or apply gaussian blur and set the layer blending to 'Screen'. Again experiment with multiple layers with different blending settings and brightness/contrast to get just that look. Lemme know if anything else comes up!

Hello, Thanks guys for the tips :) I'll try them. You've helped me out a lot. :) Mystro

Get Flame Pear's Glare plug-in. It's amazing. I think there's a full 30 day demo to download on their site.

If you want to use plug-ins and don't mind paying for them (some have demos - I don't know the sites so go and search on Google!), these are by far the best: Axion Lens Flare Genesis V2 Pro Knoll Lens Flare The last two are decidedly the pick of the lot. Genesis can generate some eye-popping effects, and Knoll is for those who can spend hours tweaking elements and settings to achieve a final effect. Knoll, by the way, was developed by a guy who was on the Photoahop developing team. Enjoy !!

I thought the bottom one was a drop shadow over a lense a gradient filled white circle? Bsteph