How To Draw Beams Of Light

When you're seeking to add together drama to a dark scene, one of the most powerful approaches is to add together low-cal beams. In today's tutorial, we'll create a dramatic low-cal axle from scratch using a series of Curves adjustment layers.

Step 1: Open up a Dark Scene

Open a night scene that can benefit from a dramatic calorie-free axle.

Step 2: Add a Diffuse Beam

In this pace, nosotros'll add a lengthened beam that represents the outer border of the calorie-free'due south glow. Activate the Polygonal Lasso tool. Using a connect-the-dots approach, depict a triangular-shaped beam like to the screen catch beneath.

Open the Adjustments panel and click on the Create a new Curves adjustment layer icon. Catch the center (midtone) indicate and drag upward to add calorie-free to the selected region. Don't worry nearly perfecting the amount of light. Since this is an adjustment layer, the amount of calorie-free tin can be modified at whatever moment just by dragging the point higher (more light) or lower (less light).

Blur the beam by choosing Filter>Mistiness>Gaussian Blur. Accommodate the Radius until the outer edge of the axle looks realistic.

Press OK.

Footstep iii: Add a More Focused Beam

The middle of the beam should take a more intense glow than the exterior, then we'll add a more focused beam in this step. With the Polygonal Lasso tool still active, describe a narrower triangular-shaped beam inside the original axle.

Add a Curves adjustment layer and elevate the eye betoken up a little higher than before to add slightly more intense light.

Blur the beam with Gaussian Mistiness using a Radius similar to the original axle.

Press OK. Keep in heed that you lot take the ability to adjust the intensity of each Bend at any time.

Stride 4: Fade the Axle

Since light is strongest at the point of origin, we'll bring more intensity to the narrow (top) portion of the beam. With the top Curves layer (Curves 2) active, press Shift and click on the bottom Curves layer (Curves ane) to activate them both.

At present press Command-K (PC: Control-G) to place both Curves layers into a group (Group 1). Indistinguishable the group by pressing Command-J (PC: Control-J).

With the acme group (Group i copy) active, click the Add together layer mask icon at the base of the Layers panel. Tap D, then X to gear up black as the Foreground color. Select the Gradient tool. From the Slope picker in the Options Bar, choose the Foreground to Transparent option.

Click at the base of operations of the low-cal beam and drag to the summit to fade the lower portion of the beam.

Pace 5: Add together Temper

Without atmospheric particles, such as dust or water, lite beams are not possible. In this step, we'll add together some atmosphere to the scene. Add together another Curves adjustment layer. Equally with the previous Curves layers, drag the midtone bespeak up. Choose Filter>Render>Clouds. This fills the mask with a cloud effect. To refine the intensity of the consequence on the prototype, play around with the point on the curve.

If desired, the effect can be isolated to certain regions by painting with black (or gray) on the cloud-filled mask. Additionally, the clouds can be stretched using Free Transform.

Stride 6: Burnish the Ground's Surface

When light strikes the ground, the surface glows. Permit's bring just a touch more glow to the spot where the lite strikes the rock. Add a final Curves adjustment layer. Click the hand-with-arrows icon to activate the on-image controls.

Click on a bright portion of the rock and drag upward to increase the low-cal's intensity.

Temporarily hibernate the effect by pressing Command-I (PC: Control-I). Tap D to ready white as the Foreground color. Catch a soft-edged castor and paint over the rock's surface to selectively add light.