|
Forums >
Digital Art and Retouching >
How to create light rays?
 Hey, does anyone know how to create realistic light rays like in the above picture? I would just use some from stock, but I need light rays on a blank background, which I can't find. So yeah, any tips on how to create light like this? Thanks! May 01 10 10:45 pm Link Easiest way I can think of is to do a circular gradient from the color of your choice to transparent, with the center point being the light source. Paint out streaks in it and reduce the transparency till it looks good. May 01 10 10:48 pm Link direct light source (maybe gridded?), high and way back flashing into a dusty/smokey space May 01 10 10:51 pm Link Randall Photography wrote: Heh, what's funny is I didn't think of taking an actual picture. May 01 10 10:53 pm Link Haha well maybe if I had a fancy camera, I would take a picture. But I'm limited to a Sony Cybershot and little knowledge of photography...so I only have my old version of Photoshop CS to work with. XD Sigh....I'm so poor. Hahahaha May 01 10 10:58 pm Link Groundwerks Productions wrote: haha, I'm a big "do as much as possible in camera" kinda guy cause I hate having to do it in photoshop May 01 10 11:00 pm Link I suggest making a grad on black and then gradient mapping color into it. Make the high end white, introduce a pale color, and then maybe make it a deeper darker color before it finally goes black. Put curves or exposure between the grad and the gradient map. If you curve the gard brighter, more of it will push through the pale color into the white. If you curve the grad darker, more of it will fall into the deeper hue. If you make the beams very dark they will take on the deep color you designated for the beam just before it dies. Then shape it and comp it with a layer mask. May 01 10 11:02 pm Link NothingIsRealButTheGirl wrote: this is a good idea May 01 10 11:26 pm Link Just use custom brushes. There are hundreds of good light beam brushes out there. May 02 10 03:11 am Link If you can't find suitable brushes, here's a simple way to make sunrays.  1. On a blank layer, paint some stripes of varying widths. 100% brush opacity. Hold shift to make straight lines. _____________________________  2. Apply Gaussian blur. _____________________________  3. Use Transform > Perspective to spread the bottom out and squeeze the top together. You can pull the bottom out beyond the image frame for a wider spread of sunrays. _____________________________  4. Change blend mode to Screen and reduce layer opacity to get the effect you want. You can also add a layer mask and fade parts of the beams wherever you like. May 02 10 08:13 am Link very cool, I wouldn't have done it that way I would have done a way that actually involved some painting (which I have no patience for): make an Exposure layer mask bump up the exposure +1 and maybe the gamma a little and mask out the parts you want. May 02 10 08:53 am Link Ah Peano...I love you. XD haha, awesome tips everyone! I will try them all out. May 02 10 08:28 pm Link HuggleMistress wrote:
May 02 10 08:32 pm Link I used the filter lighting effects for this beam of light its under "render" a layer mask could be used to break the beam up.  May 02 10 08:40 pm Link  Also when airborne particles scatter light the beam becomes somewhat opaque. I'm not sure the screen blend mode is the best way to model what they do. Have to think about it a bit. May 02 10 08:55 pm Link David Simpson Images wrote: There is also the 'zoom' version of motion blur. That filter operates from the center of an image, so you usually have to work off center in a larger canvas to make that line up right. May 02 10 08:56 pm Link Peano wrote: Do you hear me clapping? May 02 10 09:03 pm Link By the way, I'm creating these light rays to look like they're underwater. Don't know if that makes a difference at all. But so far, Peano's technique has worked best. Downloading premade brushes would be another easy suggestion, however I need them to be bigger than 2500px. Also, instead of white, I used a blue color though to give the underwater effect. I should post it here when I'm done.  May 02 10 10:28 pm Link HuggleMistress wrote: You probably don't want just a single color. May 02 10 10:47 pm Link I'm nowhere a PhotoShop expert, but was wondering if a Gradient filter would help? Say a white on top to gray (or whatever color you wish to use?). May 02 10 11:46 pm Link HuggleMistress wrote: You can also color the rays by clipping a hue/sat adjustment layer to the rays layer. Tick the colorize box and drop the lightness slider just a little (because you can't colorize white; need a light gray for the color to "take"). May 03 10 07:43 am Link  Like this? May 03 10 05:10 pm Link  It's not done yet....but the light rays are pretty much done. Okay you guys, this is what I made with you're guy's help. Again, Peano, you are awesome! XD Everyone was a lot of help! May 05 10 11:29 pm Link HuggleMistress wrote: May 06 10 11:01 am Link Natalia_Taffarel wrote: Great brushes for sure, Thanks Natalia for the link! May 06 10 08:05 pm Link JCDM wrote: Ditto. These are keepers! May 06 10 08:14 pm Link Peano wrote: I like your way too Peano!! Very nice! Very versatile. May 06 10 08:33 pm Link Most Compositing Packages like Nuke have a "godrays" plug in that looks at the image and projects this for you. May 07 10 07:02 pm Link |
