Light Rays

It's a little sloppy, I apologize! I did it fast while my kids were destroying my living room :) But the concept is easy to follow, and once you know the technical steps, you can get creative.

Open a new file, and if the background isn't black, paint bucket it :)

Then select your paintbrush tool, set the foreground color to white, hardness to 100% and then make a bunch of little dots. Make it a smaller sized brush, and there's not really a rhyme or reason to placement. But! Be smarter than me, start lower in the image, maybe 3/4 of the way down. You'll see why....

Increase the brush size, reduce the opacity to 30-40% and brush around the little dots.

Then, go to the filter tab, blur, radial blur. Set it to Zoom and between 90-100. Then click okay.

Once it finishes, go to Filter and click radial blur at the very top of the drop down. Do this several times. I think I did it 7-8 times.

Now, if you started low enough, you won't have to do this step. But when I needed to do was duplicate my layer, flip it over. Fo those of you who started low enough, just flip your image vertically.

Then, in the Edit tab, go to transform, or click command T. You can then increase the size, starting by dragging the rays to the bottom of the image and then outward to the sides.

Then I like to use the perspective transform, also found under the Edit tab, and make it look like the rays are coming towards me.

This step is optional, but I like it. I add a new layer and select the radial gradient tool.

Then click and drag from the top of your image about halfway down.

You end up with a gradient like this, but also remember to reduce the opacity a bit.

The next step is a gaussian blur, under the Filter tab in blur. Adjust it between 15-30 per your liking.

Then I like to zoom out, and perspective transform the whole thing to fill the image space completely.

And here is the end result! Then you use it with the screen, overlay, or soft light blend mode depending on the look you are trying to achieve. Good luck, let me know if you have any questions!

www.arastanphotography.com