Light ray brush pack
Give shots a new look in Photoshop by painting beams of light
Paint beams of light in Photoshop and give your images a new look
Although it’s wonderful to capture stunning scenes in-camera, there are times when it’s not possible to get the dramatic lighting concept you have in mind. A good case in point is sunbeams streaming through a window and lighting up the dust hanging in the air. These conditions are rare in reality, but can be set up with carefully positioned, high-power lights and the delicate use of a smoke machine – assuming you have the equipment, location permissions and a crew to make everything happen!
This won’t be the case for most of us, but with the right tools and techniques, the effect can be emulated in post-processing, giving you the type of heightened-reality shots you often see in movies and big-budget advertising stills. With this issue, we’re providing the tools you need in the form of 17 custom-made light ray brushes. These load into Photoshop, and will make dramatic beams of light emanate from light sources in your shot. The technique is surprisingly easy, too!
Load up your brushes 1
To install the Light Ray Brushes into Photoshop CC, first drag the Light Ray Brushes.abr folder to your computer. Open Photoshop CC; to open the Brushes panel, go to Window > Brushes. Click on the flyout menu (the four-line icon in the top-right of the panel), and from the list, click on Import Brushes.
In the window that pops up, navigate to find the Light Ray Brushes.abr file on your desktop and double-click on it. The new brushes will be installed and will appear at the bottom of the list in your Brushes panel, in a folder called Light Ray Brushes. You can expand or contract the folder by clicking the drop-down arrow to the left of the name.
Set up your brush 2
Open the image you want to add your light rays to, or use Chamber.jpg from the disc to get the hang of the technique. Open the Layers Panel (Window > Layers) and click on the Create A New Layer icon to add an empty layer above the Background layer. Click where it says Normal and change the Blending Mode to Lighten. Now go to the Brushes Panel (it should still be on screen), and click on the Lightrays brush you want to use. (I used Lightrays 15 for this image.) This automatically selects the Brush Tool. To set the brush colour to white, press D then X. If you want to use a different colour, like a very pale yellow or blue, click on the foreground colour swatch and select the colour you want.
Add light rays 3
When you hold the brush cursor over the image, you’ll see its outline, so make sure this sits within the image boundary by adjusting the brush size with the square brackets keys. Don’t worry about positioning the brush yet: just make sure the Brush Opacity is set to 100% (press 0), then click once to apply it to the picture. If you want a stronger, brighter effect, click again – but don’t move the mouse between clicks. To position the light rays, press Ctrl/Cmd+T to bring up Free Transform. Drag outside the box to rotate the rays, and pull the control handles to alter its shape. Hold Shift to alter the length or width, and hold Ctrl/Cmd to distort them with the corner handles. Drag the box or use the cursor keys to position the rays, and press Return to set it down once you’re happy with the size, shape and placement.
Add a flare to the source 4
To add intensity to a light source that’s in-shot, create a new layer (press Ctrl/Cmd+Alt+Shift+N) and fill it with black (press D then Alt+Backspace). On this new layer, set the Blending Mode to Screen to make the black transparent, then go to Filter > Render Lens Flare. Pick a suitable flare, such as 35mm Prime, with Brightness at 125, then click in the preview box and click OK to get the flare in the right position. (You may need a few attempts).
You can fine-tune the position of the flare by enlarging the flare layer with Free Transform, and moving it into place. Make sure the black background covers the frame, so you don’t leave a hardedged line on the image. Press Return to set it down. To make the light rays more prominent, add a Curves Adjustment Layer to the Background layer, and pull the curve down to darken it.