How to Create Intense Light Streaks in Photoshop

A couple of subscribers left their comment on a previous post that collated a range of inspiring graphic artwork from digital artists across the world. The commentors asked how the light stream effect on some of the pieces was created. I did a little research and picked up a couple of tips from similar tutorials to present a walkthrough on how to create intense light streaks flowing around an object or person.

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Firstly find a subject to base the flowing light streams on. I picked out an image of a drinks can to relate to the original piece of artwork that inspired thesubscriber. Using the Pen Tool draw a path around the object, make the selection and paste into a new document using a black background.

Reselect the object by CMD/CTRL + Click on the layer, go to Select > Feather and enter 1px. Inverse the selection and hit delete. Duplicate the layer and set the layer style to Multiply, drop the Opacity to suit. These tips help the object blend with the background a little more realistically by erasing out the hard edges and altering the lighting and shadows.

On a new layer draw a circular marquee and add a Gradient fading to black with a colour of your choice, here I've chosen a cool green. Transform the gradient and squash it vertically to add a little perspective.

Open up some kind of texture and paste it into the document. This particular image is a watercolour texture from the GoMedia Freebies. Desaturate to remove the colour.

Change the blending mode to Multiply to render the white areas of the texture transparent.

Back on the can or object layer add an Outer Glow through the Layer Styles, the key is to change the blending mode to Color Dodge to give a really intense glow.

Prepare a brush for creating the flowing light streams, experiment with the brush settings to give a thin tapered stroke. The main option to adjust is the Control and Minimum Diameter settings in the Shape Dynamics section.

Use the Pen Tool to draw a smooth flowing path, with the Pen Tool still selected right click and select Stroke Path, ensure the Brush option is selected along with Simulate Pressure.

Add another Outer Glow to the layer of the brush stroke using similar Color Dodge settings.

Draw as many streams as you like around the object, keeping the lines flowing as smoothly as possible in a variety of directions.

The Color Dodge effect works the best when the objects overlap the coloured gradient, here I scale up the gradient to allow for more light effects around the object.

Unfortunately the straight edges of the texture layer show through, use a large eraser to blend them out.

Add a little atmosphere to the object by placing a few blobs of colour on a new layer. Changing the blending mode to Soft Light will give a slight green glow to the object as if it is reflecting the green light from the intense glowing lines, overall adding a little more realism.

Make a selection from the object layer, inverse and delete out the unwanted area.

The light streams look okay flowing out from underneath the object but they would look a little better if they interacted in some way. Move the light stream layer above the object.

Erase out the majority of the lines leaving select areas which blend into or around the object.

A common addition to this trendy style is an array of glowing light particles. Setup another brush, this time play around with the Scatter, Spacing and Size Jitter options.

Brush in a range of dots and blobs with varying brush sizes to cover the whole of the object and flowing lines. Add the same Outer Glow layer style as the light stream layer.

Erase out the most of the particles to leave a subtle effect with slight differences in opacity.

Finish off the image with a few focal rings on multiple layers with very low opacity. These help relate to the objects that appear when photographing light with a camera, adding a little extra realism.

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Turn Photos of People into Line Art

By Melissa Evans Line Art Tutorial Recommended for Intermediate Level Photoshop Users
Tutorial Links: Page 1 | Page 2

First up Id like to ease your mind and let you know that you dont need to know how to draw to complete this tutorial. Its basically tracing, except that tracing is alot easier in Adobe Photoshop. Creating line art with this technique will take several hours to do a good jobif you want a tutorial that just applies a couple of filters, then this tutorial is not for you! You will need to know how to use the PEN TOOL for this tutorial. (If you dont know how to use the pen tool complete the fast tutorial found HERE first). I suggest you read through the entire tutorial first, before you begin.

1. Preparing the Layers

Open your photo in Photoshop. Rename the layer original. If your picture is quite dark you will need to lighten it a little. The reason for this is that we will be tracing over the photo in black so we need to be able to see the lines we are creating clearly.

Adjust the Brighness of the photo Image >> Adjustments >> Brightness/Contrast

Duplicate the original layer. Rename this new layer top. Create two more new layers. Place them under the top layer. Fill the layer closest to the original layer white and rename it background. Leave the other layer transparent and rename it line art Turn the visibility OFF for the background and top layers.< Visibility ON for the line art and original layers and the line art layer is active. See image below. (All this organisation will be explained soon).

We are now set to create the line art.

2. Brush Tool Settings

When creating line art you want to vary to thickness of the line (line weight). Varying the line weight emphasizes the perspective of the drawing. As lines become closer the viewers the lines get thicker. Lines taper towards the furtherest part of the object. The image below shows an exaggerated example of this. Also areas that fall into shade can have a heavier line, while areas in light can be represented with a thinner line. A good way to get better idea of this is by studying the line art of comic books. Another technique is to use just two line weights. A heavier line is used for the outer edges of the object and all internal lines are a smaller size. Im not a fan of this style but each to their own, as long as your picture doesnt look flat.

To taper the lines in Photoshop we need to adjust our Paint Brush Settings. Click on your Paint Brush tool. We need to adjust the brush presets. In older versions of Photoshop (CS2 and earlier) click on the brush palette tab at right top of your photoshop screen. See image below. In CS3 onwards your brush palette is available by clicking on the pallete icon on the top or see image below..

The settings you use are going to vary with each line you create, especially the diameter. Below shows one Brush Tip Shape I used.

Next click on the Shape Dynamics. 1. Set the Control to Fade. (This will allow our line to taper). 2. Adjust the fade setting. (Im using 250 here but try experimenting with various combinations of 2 & 3). 3. Adjust the Minimum Diameter. (Im using 27% here but the key to great line art is variety so experiment).

Make sure your foreground colour is black. See image above.

3. Creating the Paths

The best place to start is the center of focus, which is normally the face. Since Im using an image of Scarlett Johansson Ill start on her lips. Remember the point where you start the path is going to be the thickest. Make sure the pen tool is set to Create New Work Path. See below.

Create a path paying attention to the angle of the curves. Note: Keep the distance of each line rather short. Dont try to create one line to go right around the lips.

Once you are happy with the path, right click and select Stroke Path See below.

Turn ON the visibility of the white background layer. Delete the path (right click and select Delete Path). Now you can clearly see the line you have created. If you are happy turn OFF the white background layer and create the next line. If not use your History Palette. See image below. By clicking here you can adjust the curve or paint brush settings.

If the line is only slightly off you can use the Eraser Tool. Rather than using the eraser tool in a up/down motion, move it on a diagonal to the line art. That way the line will have a tapered effect at the end. See image below.

To create a line that is tapered at both ends like the one shown below. In the brush Shape Dynamics Window change the Control from Fade to Pen Pressure, and the Minimum Diameter to 1%. See second image below.

When you select Stroke Path this time check the Simulate Pressure box. See image below.

Once you have finished creating an item, like the lips, its important to check them against the original. Turn the visibility ON for the white background layer. Turn ON and OFF the visibility of the top layer. If it looks like the lips are jumping then you will need to adjust the line art. To create very thick line areas, such as the eyebrows shown below, we create a closed path and choose Fill Pathinstead of Stroke Path. (A closed path means that there should be no ends to the path, like a circle.)

The image below shows the upper eyelash path I created. I also used Fill Path here.

To create shapes that are round, square, oval, etc remember to use the Shape Tools. (Found next to the pen tool). The image below shows how I created the iris outline using the Ellipse Tool to save time.

I guarantee that you will get faster and faster at this technique of creating line art in Photoshop, so stick with it.

On the following page is a larger image of the Scarlett Johansson line art I created with some helpful notes >>