Create a Glowing Light Painting Effect

Create a Glowing Light Painting Effect

Fabio on Aug 19th 2011 with 171 comments
Tutorial Details
  • Program: Adobe Photoshop
  • Difficulty: Beginner
  • Estimated Completion Time: 1 Hour
Download Source Files

Final Product What You'll Be Creating

In this tutorial I will show you an easy, and very fast way, to create a light painting in Photoshop.

Editor’s note: This tutorial was original published on Psdtuts in April of 2008.

Step 1

Create a new document and place the photo, you can download the one I used at: Photo 1.

Step 2

Here I placed a second image. I will use it to create the light effects. Here is the link for the next image: Photo 2.

Step 3

With the Pen Tool(P), create a path for one of the figures.

Step 4

Select the Brush Tool(B) and go to Window>Brushes or F5 to create our brush. Use 8px for the diameter and select Dual Brush and Other Dynamics. Follow the image below for reference.

Step 5

Go to the Layer Palette, create a new folder, and rename it to lights. After that create a new layer inside this folder, name it “dude”, and select it.

Step 6

Go to the Path Palette and select the first path. Then with the Path Selection Tool(A), select the path and right-click. Choose Stroke Path. A dialog box will open; select the brush and use Simulate Pressure.

After that go to Filter>Blur>Gaussian Blur, use 1.6px for the amount.

Step 7

Duplicate the “dude” layer three times.

Step 8

Select the Rectangle Tool (U) and create a rectangle. Then duplicate the rectangle several times. After that align and distribute them horizontally.

Step 9

Create a new layer inside the lights folder. Rename it to “xing”. Repeat Step 6 and Stroke the paths. After that select the “xing” layer and go to Edit>Transform>Distort. Now just move the vertices until the perspective is good—just follow the street lines.

Conclusion

That’s probably the easiest way to create this type of light effect; however, it depends on the color of the background. If the background is too dark, the blend mode won’t work. You’ll probably have to use another one with an Outer Glow.

You can make the lights brighter by just duplicating the layers. You can even use the Eraser Tool(E) to make some adjustments. The original concept image can be viewed at Light Graffiti In Photoshop. The final tutorial image is below.

 
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By Fabio

Rollover to read this author's bio or click through to see a full list of posts by this author.

I am a Brazilian designer living in Porto Alegre (south of Brazil). In 2003, I founded a web design studio called ZEE, with Fabiano Meneghetti, an architect and friend of mine. It's a small studio now, with 4 people working basically with web.  

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Discussion 171 Comments

Comment Page 4 of 4 1 2 3 4
  1. Biju Subhash says:
    August 28, 2011 at 8:41 am

    thank you,
    very useful and simple tutorial… :D

    Reply
  2. Arthur Azevedo says:
    August 28, 2011 at 11:15 pm

    Exactly the same tutorial from Abduzeedo… really? C’mon guys! Ask the autor to do a new one instead!

    Reply
  3. Kenny says:
    September 2, 2011 at 11:07 am

    This sucked

    Reply
  4. Fitria says:
    September 6, 2011 at 7:29 pm

    hey i was wondering what photoshop did you use

    Thankx :)

    Reply
  5. omar faruk says:
    September 8, 2011 at 7:54 am

    useful tutorial such as my need

    Reply
  6. Jack says:
    September 13, 2011 at 2:04 pm

    A nice tutorial. Many different shapes of animals can be created with this simple and easy to use tutorial and with different background, even this can be used to create ghost kind of image in brighter pictures. I will try one.

    Reply
  7. Carla says:
    September 20, 2011 at 7:00 am

    Nice tut.

    I’d love an answer on how to achieve the tapered ends on the brush, if you can.
    That’s the one thing I can’t figure out.

    Reply
  8. Zusuf says:
    September 29, 2011 at 10:54 am

    Nice tutorial :)

    Reply
  9. Emily Dennis says:
    October 9, 2011 at 3:04 am

    good mostly.. but how did your colour change ? i couldnt get mine the right colour.. also my rectangle path would copy and move.. :(

    Reply
  10. Emily Dennis says:
    October 9, 2011 at 3:05 am

    got the moving thing :P but still with the colours ?

    Reply
  11. Md.Rahat Hasan says:
    October 31, 2011 at 8:17 am

    Words fail me……..

    Reply
  12. T says:
    November 16, 2011 at 6:37 am

    Also blending mode Vivid light and Hard mix works the same like Color Dodge.
    Some little experiments and it’ll be like this result.

    Thanks for tut :)

    >>Vanessa
    You can use standart brush with hardeness 0 and maybe a bit bigger then 8px.

    Reply
  13. Seo paslaugos says:
    November 29, 2011 at 9:30 am

    Very useful tutorial! Thanks! ;)

    Reply
  14. DoVu says:
    December 17, 2011 at 11:00 pm

    I don’t understand how you make the stroke thicker and thicker. Can you tell more detail?? Plz ^_^

    Reply
  15. Manas Krit says:
    January 10, 2012 at 9:29 am

    nice effect i’ve see in last 2 days n a good tutorial such as my need. a very useful tutorial. Many different kind of animal can be created by using this tutorial, even this can b created MANY horrible creature.

    Reply
  16. Margot90 says:
    January 15, 2012 at 8:48 pm

    I do not understand why I can not give that effect of light. I get the white shapes

    Reply
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