Create a colourful light-painting with Photoshop layerss

Bring your best shots together, then edit the colours to really make the image pop

1 Select the best shots

Take a bunch of shots with your camera locked off on a tripod (8 sec at f/11, ISO 100) and shine the torch from a different angle each time. After this, take some more shots using the string lights, dragging them through the frame and shaking them around. Ctrl/Cmd-click on your five or six best shots in Bridge, and select Tools > Photoshop > Open in Photoshop Layers.

2 Blend in Photoshop

In Photoshop, the shots will be put into a layers stack; provided you didn’t move the camera while shooting, they will line up perfectly. Click on the top layer, then hold Shift and click on the bottom layer to select them all. Now click where it says Normal and select the Lighten Blending Mode. This blends all the lighting effects together. Switch the eye icons on or off to get a good mix.

3 Add colour to the mix

To add colour to a lighting layer, select the layer then create a Hue/Saturation Adjustment Layer. Hold Alt and click on the line between the layer and the Adjustment Layer to clip the Adjustment Layer. In the Hue/Saturation Panel, tick the Colorize box and move the Hue and Saturation sliders to change the colour.

Do this for as many layers as you like.