Create Lightning
You can select a picture of an old castle or a lighthouse and add some effect to it like lightning, to give it a dramatic look. You can change the colour of the picture to black and white or can choose a night photo. Open the picture in Photoshop by going to file and clicking on New and then browsing for the picture. From the tools palette on the left hand side select the brush icon. On the options bar on the top of the screen click on the arrow next to the brush to open the menu. From the open menu, select a lightning brush which you will need throughout. From the colour picker box, select white as your foreground colour as you will want the lightning to be white.
Now, to add a new layer, go to the bottom of the layers palette and click on new layer icon. You can rename this new layer by clicking on the word “layer1”. Now, hover the brush over the image but do not click on the image as yet. First decide how and where you want to place the lightning and then start. You can make the brush larger by using the ‘bracket” [ ] keys. The lighting will be drawn on the new layer, which you created. So you can move the lightning, either to the left or the right or even up or down, depending on where in the picture you want to place it.
If you want the lightning to be wider or longer, you can go to Edit and click on Transform, then choose Scale from the Transforms fly out menu. A transform box will appear on the lighting area. You can click on and drag the square boxes to resize the lightning image and see how it will fit in your picture. Once done, click the check mark to accept the transform.
Original Authors: Siva
Edit Update Authors: M.A.Harris
Updated On: 27/04/2009
