Time to brighten the scene

This piece is coming along nicely enough, but it just doesn’t feel dark enough at the moment. This is where I break out my trusty Gradient tool again and drop in a medium-dark gradient behind the X-wing at the back. There, that feels better, doesn’t it?

Lens flare on the lightsaber

I want lens flare coming off the lightsaber. I create a Lighten layer, pick a saturated, medium-value red and use the Gradient tool to create an even band of red at the level of the lightsaber. Then I create a Layer Mask, fill it with black and use a Radial Gradient in the Layer Mask to paint the red band back in.