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Create Lighting, Version 2.
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Making Lighting:
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1.
Lightning?
A student recently asked me how to "make lightning" using Photoshop. I first thought of an action I had once created that made what looked like a storm of electricity. You can see how I did this in my tutorial, Electrify Your Images.
But I knew I'd have to find a different solution, since what I was after was a single bolt of electricity, not a whole bunch of electrical arcs. I found the answer using a similar method, but with a couple new steps. |
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2.
Gradient
To get a bolt of lightning, we're fist going to use the Linear Gradient tool.  After making a new file, make sure your colors are set to their defaults of Black & White,  and create a gradient. You're going to have best luck getting a single line of lightning if you keep the gradation a short one. For the images at left, I clicked at point A, dragged to point B, and released the mouse. I got the gradient you see at bottom left.
Bear in mind the gradation (the gradual change from Black to White) you create will determine the direction of the lightning bolt. Mine will be diagonal, but you can get the same results vertically or horizontally. |
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3.
Difference Clouds
Now I'll choose Filter: Render: Difference Clouds. Unlike Clouds, Difference Clouds looks at what exists on the canvas and blends with it. It creates a Difference (see the tutorial, Blend Modes Explained) effect on whatever you apply it to. At top left, you can see how it affected my gradient from step 2.
We need to make one important change before it more closely resembles lightning. To get a guaranteed result, choose Image: Adjust: Invert, which reverses all values. See the image at bottom left for the first clear glimpse of what our lightning bolt will look like.
For more irregular results, instead of Invert, next time you try this, try applying Difference Clouds a second time. |
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4.
Contrast
Now I'll choose Image: Adjust: Brightness/Contrast. You can see where I moved the sliders to (see image at left) to lighten the lights and darken the darks and make my lighting bolt stand out.
For those of you who have headed into the more advanced territory of adjusting Curves or Levels, you'll have a lot more control over this step by doing one of those steps instead of Brightness/Contrast. For everyone else, don't sweat it, Brightness/Contrast will do the job fine. |
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5.
Touching Up
No doubt you spotted some errant spots of white in the Contrast-ed image above. I got rid of these unwanted elements by painting over them using Black with my Airbrush.
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6.
Color Range
If you're happy with the black background, you can skip to the next step and start colorizing your Lightning Bolt. What I want to do is put the bolt on it's own layer. I start by selecting the Black area. With Black as my foreground color, I choose Select: Color Range. You can see the Color Range Dialog box to the left I had the Fuzziness Slider cranked up to it's maximum, 200. The portion of the image that will be selected appears white in the preview.
After I click OK in the Color Range Dialog, I choose Select: Inverse to reverse the selected area and grab the light area. Next, I Copy and Paste putting only the bolt of lightning on another layer. Now I can replace the background or distort it easier. |
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7.
Colorize
Who want a grayscale bolt of lightning? Let's use Image: Adjust: Hue/Saturation to give it some color. I clicked the Colorize option and set the sliders as you see to the left. I gave it an appropriate yellow tint.
That's it. Now you can do as you like with your newly born lightning strike!
We could stop here, but that just isn't the Team Photoshop way. |
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8.
Shazam!
Here I've created a variation of the image you saw at the top of this tutorial. I gave our lightning a more appropriate background using the regular Clouds filter with black and green; then distorted it using Scale and Perspective. |
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9.
Lightning Rod
I wanted to show you a couple of simple applications of what we made to photos. Here you can see the before and after version of a cityscape. I've done some selecting and colorizing of the image, and transformed my lightning bolt. Just what were they thinking building that giant needle anyway? |
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10.
Ski Accident
If you learn one thing from me today, I hope it is that you should never go "hot-dogging" on your skis during an electrical storm.
For the bottom image, I had some help from Eye Candy's Fire filter as well as transforming our bolt using Scale and Perspective.
That's it. Now that you have the powers of Thor, use them wisely. |
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If you have any questions or comments regarding this tutorial please post it in this thread
http://forum.teamphotoshop.com/showthread.php?t=24682
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