Create a light Effect in Photoshop

Step 1

Create a new document in Photoshop and fill the background with black using the Paint Bucket Tool (G). Then go to Layer - New - Group to create a new group and name it "bg". Create a new layer inside this group and fill it with the color #1f0959. Name this layer "bg" and set its opacity to 50%.

Step 2

Create a new layer inside the "bg" group. Then select a soft brush with the size 50px, set the foreground color to #b52a66 and draw some random lines on your image.

Step 3

Right-click on the layer you created at the previous step and select Convert to Smart Object. Then go to Filter - Blur - Motion Blur and use the settings from the following image. Name this layer "color" and set its opacity to 30%.

Step 4

Duplicate the "color" layer by dragging it over the 'Create a new layer' button from the bottom of the Layers panel (or right-click on it and select Duplicate Layer). Then go to Edit - Free Transform (Ctrl/Cmd + T), hold down the Shift key and make this layer smaller.

Double-click on the new "color" layer to open the Layer Style window and add a Color Overlay using the color #ffd200. Set the opacity of this layer to 20%.

Step 5

Download this galaxy image and open it in Photoshop. Then use the Move Tool (V) to move it into your first document. Go to Edit - Free Transform (Ctrl/Cmd + T) and change the size of this image. Add a Motion Blur filter to this layer using the settings from the following image. Name this layer "texture" and set its blend mode to Screen 25%.

Step 6

Create a new group and name it "stars". Create a new layer inside this group and fill it with black. Right-click on it and select Convert to Smart Object. Go to Filter - Noise - Add Noise and use the settings from the following image. Then go to Filter - Blur - Gaussian Blur and set the radius to 0.2px.

Go to Layer - New Adjustment Layer - Levels, tick the "Use Previous Layer to Create Clipping Mask" option and use the settings from the following image. Then set the blend mode of the "stars" group to Screen.

Note: to reduce the number of stars even more you can add a mask to the "stars" layer and paint with a black soft brush (B) over some areas of the image.

Step 7

Download this image and open it in Photoshop. Use the Move Tool (V) to move it into your document inside the "stars" group. Then use Free Transform (Ctrl/Cmd + T) to change the size of the image. Name this layer "stars 2? and set its opacity to 20%.

Step 8

Now that we have the background we can start creating some light effects. Create a new group and name it "light effects". Create a new layer inside this group and use the Rectangular Marquee Tool (M) to make a selection like the one from the following image. Then drag a white to transparent gradient (G) from the top of the selection to the bottom. Hit Ctrl/Cmd + D to deselect.

Use the Eraser Tool (E) with a big soft brush to erase the left and right side of the white gradient layer. Then set the blend mode of the "light effects" group to Color Dodge.

Step 9

Hide the layer that you created at the previous step for the moment. Then create a new layer inside the "light effects" group. Select a white soft brush with the size 50px and draw with it some random lines. Right-click on this layer and select Convert to Smart Object. Go to Filter - Blur - Motion Blur and use the settings from the following image. Then go to Filter - Other - Maximum and set the radius to 3px to get a really nice effect. Name this layer "lights".

Step 10

Duplicate the layer that you created at step 8. Make this layer visible and put it above the "lights" layer. Then go to Filter - Noise - Add Noise and use the settings from the following image. Go to Edit - Free Transform (Ctrl/Cmd + T), hold down the Shift key and rotate this layer with -45.

Step 11

Duplicate the layer you created at the previous step. To do this, select the Move Tool (V), hold down the Alt/Option key, click on the image and drag the cursor. Set the opacity of this layer to around 30%.

Continue to click and drag to duplicate the layer as many times as you want. Then set the opacity of each layer between 20-60%. Take a look at the following image for reference.

Step 12

Select the Brush Tool (B) and select a hard brush with the diameter 35px. Then go to the Brushes panel (Window - Brushes) and use the settings from the following image to create a new brush. To save it, click on the 'Create new brush' button from the bottom of this panel.

Create a new layer inside the "light effects" group and set the foreground color to white. Then use the brush you created to draw some white circles from the upper left corner of the image to the lower right corner.

Right-click on this layer and select Convert to Smart Object. Then go to Filter - Blur - Motion Blur and use the settings from the following image. You can also add a mask to this layer and paint with black over the corners of the image to erase the light effect from there.

Step 13

Select the Type Tool (T) and write any word you want using a bold font (such as Myriad Pro Black Semi Extended).

Step 14

Double-click on the text layer to open the Layer Style window and use the settings from the following image.

Step 15

Go to Edit - Free Transform (Ctrl/Cmd + T) and rotate the text layer with -45. Then use the Move Tool (V) to move it in the middle of your image.

Step 16

Create a new group and name it "small text". Then select the Type Tool (T) and add more words to your image. Set the Fill to each of these text layers to 0% and use the same layer style settings that you used at step 14 (you can just copy the layer style from the previous text and paste it to these layers). Then use Free Transform (Ctrl/Cmd + T) to rotate each text layer with -45.

Step 17

Download some star vectors and open the .AI files in Adobe Illustrator. Select some stars and change their color to white.Then copy the stars (Ctrl/Cmd + C), go back to Photoshop and paste them (Ctrl/Cmd + V).

Use Free Transform (Ctrl/Cmd + T) to make these layers very small and move them around your image. Put these layers inside a group (Ctrl/Cmd + G), name the group "vector stars" and change its blend mode to Color Dodge. Set the opacity of each star layer to 60-100%.

Step 18

Create a new group, name it "big stars" and set its blend mode to Color Dodge 70%. Then select a vector star from Illustrator and change its color to white. Copy the vector shape and paste it into your Photoshop document. Go to Edit - Free Transform (Ctrl/Cmd + T) and change the size of the star. Duplicate this layer a few times and use the Move Tool (V) to arrange the stars. Set the opacity of these layers to 50-70%. As you can see in the following image I putted the stars in the upper left corner of the image between two lines of light.

Step 19

Create a new group, name it "small stars" and set its blend mode to Color Dodge 50%. Then repeat the previous step, but this time make the stars smaller and put them beneath the first ones. You can also add a mask to this group and use a black to transparent gradient (G) to erase the left and right side of the group.

Step 20

Download this bokeh texture and open the image in Photoshop. Then go to Layer - New Adjustment Layer - Black and White. Use the settings from the following image to convert this image into black and white. Create a new layer, go to Image - Apply Image and click OK.

Step 21

Move the image from the previous step into your first document. Go to Edit - Free Transform (Ctrl/Cmd + T) and change the size of the image. Then put this layer right above the "texture" layer, right-click on it and select Create Clipping Mask. Set the blend mode of this layer to Overlay and name it "bokeh".

Step 22

Go to Layer - New Adjustment Layer - Black and White. Use the settings from the following image. Then put this layer above all the other ones and set its blend mode to Soft Light 10%.

Step 23

Go to Layer - New Adjustment Layer - Gradient Map and use the settings from the following image. Set the blend mode of this layer to Soft Light 20%.

Step 24

Now we will make the image sharper. Create a new layer above all the other ones, go to Image - Apply Image and click OK. Convert this layer into a smart object. Then go to Filter - Other - High Pass and set the radius to 1.2px. Set the blend mode of this layer to Hard Light 35% and name it "high pass".

Final Result

Here is the final result of this tutorial. I hope you enjoyed it and you learned some new things. As you can see, it's very easy to create a beautiful image in Photoshop using stock vectors and textures. Stay tuned for the next Photoshop tutorial here on Grafpedia.

Author's URL: grafpedia

Photoshop Variables: How to Import External PSD Smartly

When working on large projects, with many mock-ups and style-sheets, even the smallest change on a re-occurring component can take quite some time. Going through the many mock-ups and adjusting a color or font on that re occurring component can be a grueling task. If you have an intern that does those things for you, you are in luck, but what about us freelancers?

Do we just sit there and endure the pain? Well, not anymore! A while back, I discovered a system that enables designers to say goodbye to opening 23 PSD files just to change the header color. Instead, we can work smart, like our counter parts the developers, and import external files with something called - "Variables ".

This allows us to put the re occurring component into one external file and simply import that file into all of our mock-ups. When a change is required, we can just change it in one place.

What is a Photoshop Variable?

Here is Adobe's technical explanation for a variable. A variable is basically used to define which elements in a template change. There are three ways to define a variable.

Visibility Variables - Shows or hides the content of a layer.

Pixel Replacement - Variables that replace the pixels in the layer with pixels from another image file.

Text Replacement - Variables that replace a string of text in a type layer.

You can read more about variables here: Photoshop Define Variables

For our needs, we are going to focus solely on Pixel Replacement, since what we want to do is import an external style-sheet into our PSD.

Lets Get Started

Step 1 - Setting up your files

In this step we need to decide which component in our homepage deserves a variable. In most cases, it is better off creating a variable for a component that re-appears in many different mock-ups. These components can be headers, footers, various sidebar widgets, and anything that re-occurs in the project. In our example, we will use the global header.

There are usually many different states to a component (for example, most common is logged in / logged out). This being the case, style-sheets are created for the component, illustrating the states. Ideally, we want to import the component's style-sheet and make it fit seamlessly into the mock-up. This will provide us with one file acting both as a style-sheet, and as an embedded file that will be imported into all the mocks the component appears in.

I have created a fake style-sheet for the global header called 'Component_GlobalHeader.psd'. To continue on with the rest of the steps, please Download it.

Step 2 - Setting up grounds

Let's open our homepage mock-up and create a new layer. We will give it the same name as the style-sheet's file name, in our case 'Component_GlobalHeader.psd'. Let's call this new layer 'Component_GlobalHeader'. This is the layer we will be importing the external file to.

Step 3 - Creating the variable

Now it's time to create the variable. We do this by going to image - variables - define. A popup will appear and we are going to edit some of the parameters.

First of all, always double check that the layer is indeed the correct one (the one we just created). You can check that in the 'Layer' field. If it is the incorrect layer, it may cause a bit of a mess later on.

Since we are focusing on importing, we will go straight to the 'Pixel Replacement' option. In the 'Name' field, enter the same name as the layer and external style-sheet. It is healthy to keep every name the same as this will help with organization in the future.

Next, we are going to focus on 'Method'. We are going to choose a method for scaling the replacement image/file. There are a few options here:

Fit - scales the image so that it fits in the bounding box (which may leave parts of the bounding box empty).

Fill - scales the image so that it fills the bounding box entirely (which may cause the image to extend beyond the bounding box).

As Is - applies no scaling to the image.

Conform - scales the image disproportionally so that it fits in the bounding box.

What we want is 'As Is' since we do not want to manipulate our external style sheet.

The 'Alignment' can be left as the default middle, but this is a personal preference as well as a component consideration. I have aligned top-left in the past as well. It really depends on you.

Let's leave 'Clip to Bounding Box' unchecked.

Click Next.

Step 4 - The actual importing

In order to import the file, we need to either choose or create a new 'Data Set'. Data sets are collections of variables and associated data. You define a data set for each version of the graphic you want to generate. So if you have many different sidebar widgets in your mock-up, all generated from the same external file, you would only need one data set called 'sidebar_widgets'.

Since we don't have any previously created data sets, let's start by creating a new one. To do this, click on the small disk/arrow icon on the left of the trash icon. Now that we have created a new data set, let's give it a name. Yep, you guessed it. Let's give it the same name as the variable, layer, and external style-sheet file. As I've said before, they should all be the same name.

Now that's done, we can upload the external file. Click on the 'select file' button in the 'Value' section, and choose 'Component_GlobalHeader.psd'. Notice that if you have 'Preview' checked (on the right, under the apply button), you will see the new style sheet appear on your homepage mock-up. Super important: always remember to click 'apply' before clicking on 'OK'. If you do not do this, all that we have gone through would be lost and you would need to redo everything. So remember CLICK 'APPLY', then click 'OK'.

We have successfully imported the external style sheet into our homepage mock up! Yay! But wait! We now have this massive layer, but need only part of it.

Step 5 - Masking

Since we don't want the whole style sheet to appear in our mock-up, we can basically mask the part we need and hide the rest. We will do this by creating a new shape layer in the same dimensions as the component we want to show. Now to get the shape layer to mask it, all we need to do is drag the mask onto the component layer. You will now see the whole screen filled by the shape layer since we removed its mask. Delete the un-masked shape.

Step 6 - Updating

Now that you have an external file, let me show you how this is useful. Let's say that the red selected state on your global header just isn't working for you and you'd like to switch it to blue. Simple! Go to your original style-sheet 'Component_GlobalHeader.psd' and change the selected color to blue. Save the file and go back to the homepage mock-up. Click on image - apply Data Sets and choose the data set that you would like to update. You will automatically see the change right away.

Disadvantages

Along with its potential, keep in mind that this is still considered a hack. Until Adobe decides to create a built-in system for importing external PSDs there will never be a foolproof way to do it.

One major disadvantage is that changing a component PSD and saving it will not automatically change it in the mock-ups associated with it. For example, this means that you will always need to 'apply data sets', when opening the homepage mock up. Though this is something I have not tried, this problem might be able to be solved by creating an action of some sort, making the PSD open and automatically 'apply data sets'.

Another disadvantage is the folder structure. Moving a file into a new folder tends to mess up the configuration thus creating an error when 'applying data sets'. Since it is random I haven't found a way to work around it.

With those issues in mind, I still believe that this system saves countless hours of grueling hard labor. You need to know when to use it. Most of the time, it is used only with projects that contain more than 15 to 20 mock-ups.

Conclusion

This example is just the tip of the iceberg. You can see for yourself the amazing potential this system has. Be creative and experiment. Why not try adding sidebar widgets with only one data set?

Author's URL: onextrapixel.com

Create a Romantic Sunset Look With Photoshop

I have always been impressed by the surreal, peaceful lightings of scenic places I see in films. Unfortunately, I do not get to see them in real life (yet). However, with Photoshop, I am able to create such lightings with one of my favourite scenery.

Preparation:

You will need an image similar to this. Preferably, one which you can clearly see the skyline.

Step 1:

Use soft brush (opacity 10%, black colour), and paint 1 to 2 times below the sky area. Then using the same brush opacity, change the colour to #ad651a and go over the sky area (you may use a lighter colour, but try not to make it go any darker). You will have something similar like the image below.

Step 2.

Now click on the icon beside the quick mask. This will create a new fill or adjustment layer. Choose Curves and adjust the graph to the picture below.

Result after adjustment of curves:

Step 3.

Add a new layer below the Curves layer, Set foreground colour to Black. Fill it with Black (Alt+Backspace).

Bring down the opacity of the Black filled layer to about 60% (so that you know where to place the lens flare in the image). Go to Filter - Render - Lens Flare. Adjust to the settings below.

Step 4.

Go to Filters - Blur - Gaussian Blur. Radius 10 pixels.

Bring the opacity level of the Black layer up to 100%.
Now, we are going to create light rays from the flare.

Choose Soft Round Brush with the color #ffe01a, opacity 10%. Start brushing down from the point of the flare, keep brushing down until you have something like this.

Go to Blending Mode - Linear Dodge (Add).

Step 5.

Duplicate the layer and change blending mode to Screen. Bring the opacity down of the layer to about 40%. This is what you will get.

If you think the image is still too dark, you may duplicate it again and adjust its opacity level.

Using the same brush colour #ffe01a, opacity 10% or lesser, work on the skyline area, so that the lighting is blend in nicely. You may also use the eraser tool to erase some light on the opera house (if it gets too washed out).

Step 6.

We are almost there. Select the whole canvas (Ctrl + A), Edit - Copy Merged (Shift + Ctrl + C), Open a new canvas (Ctrl + N), Paste the image on this new canvas (Ctrl + V).

We are now going to fix the blue portion at the right hand side of sky.

Use the Lasso Tool, Feather: 2 Px. Select the above the blue part of the sky. Copy (Ctrl + C) and Paste (Ctrl +P).

This will cover the blue patch in the sky.

You may wish to adjust the Levels, Curves and Colour Balance on the final image like what I have done below. Hope you like this tutorial.

Author's URL: onextrapixel.com