Stylish Light Effect in PhotoshopListThumbs

Stylish Light Effect in Photoshop

August 24, 2009

One of the most popular tutorials I have writen is the Sparkling Hot Girl in Photoshop. It was a very straightforward technique on how to create some nice light effects mixed with a hot girl. Everything over a dark background. Since then I have received emails asking me how to create light effects over white or light backgrounds. So I decided to try some ideas and create an image mixing a photo of a girl with some light effects.

So in this tutorial I will show you how to create a very stylish image mixing light effects and a hot girl photo over a light background. We will play with Blend Modes and Adjustment Layers to achieve that.

Step 1

Open Photoshop and create a new document. After that import a photo to your document, the one I used is courtesy of Shutterstock and you can donwload it here.

Stylish Light Effect in Photoshop

Step 2

Go to Image>Adjustemtns>Hue and Saturation. Reduce the Saturation to -65.

Stylish Light Effect in Photoshop

Step 3

Now go to Layer>New Adjustment Layer>Gradient Map. Use Black and White for the colors and select Dither and Reverse. After that change the Blend Mode to Soft Light.

Stylish Light Effect in Photoshop

Step 4

Duplicate the layer of the girl, this new layer will be on top of the original girl layer. Go to Filter>Other>High Pass. User 5 pixels for the Radius and press OK. After that change the Blend Mode to Hard Light.

Stylish Light Effect in Photoshop

Step 5

Select the layer girl and go to Filter>Sharpen>Unsharp Mask. Use 90% for the Amount, 7 for the Radius and 0 for the Threshold.

Stylish Light Effect in Photoshop

Step 6

Duplicate the girl layer again and put it on top of the other layers. Go to Filter>Stylize>Glowing Edges. Use 1 for the Edge Width, 2 for the Edge Brightness and 2 for the Smoothness.

Stylish Light Effect in Photoshop

Step 7

With the glowing edges layer selected, go to Image>Adjustments>Desaturate. You will have white lines now for the strokes, so just change the Blend Mode to Screen. Tip: You can make the lines stronger by going to Image>Adjustments>Levels and increasing the white input.

Stylish Light Effect in Photoshop

Step 8

Create a layer on top of the others and with the Gradient Tool (G) use black and white for the colors and Radial for the Type to fill the layer with a gradient. Change the Blend Mode to Multiply and reduce the opacity until you get a very subtle gradient effect. Use the image below for reference.

Stylish Light Effect in Photoshop

Step 9

To create the first light effect I will use a photo of a star, you can download it here. Copy just the part of the photo you want and paste it in the document. After that change the Blend Mode to Screen so what is black will be totally transparent. You will have a nice light effect over her shoulder.

Stylish Light Effect in Photoshop

Step 10

Go to Image>Adjustments>Hue and Saturation. Select Colorize and then move the Hue until you get a nice pink color, I used 300 for the Hue and 50 for the Saturation.

Stylish Light Effect in Photoshop

Step 11

Create a and with the Brush Tool (B) and a very soft round brush select a light blue for the color and paint a spot of blue light (1). Add another layer and again with the Brush Tool (B) and the same brush, just select a green for the color and paint another spot of light (2). Change the Blend Mode of these 2 layers to Screen.

Stylish Light Effect in Photoshop

Step 12

I wanted to add some nice effects like particles coming off of her body. To do that I create an explosion in Cinema 4D, it's very simple but I won't get in details this time. You can download the image I used here.

Stylish Light Effect in Photoshop

Step 13

Import the image in Photoshop and place it in your document. After that go to Image>Adjustments>Invert. That way you will get black particles instead of white. Then just change the Blend Mode to Multiply in order to make what is white become transparent. Move this first image to her back like the image below.

Stylish Light Effect in Photoshop

Step 14

Use again the same image but resize it a little bit and rotate it. It's very important to place both images trying to make it match the black areas of the girls blouse.

Stylish Light Effect in Photoshop

Step 15

With the Eraser Tool (E) use a very small brush and delete some areas to make the edges of the girl less uniform on those areas that there are the particles.

Stylish Light Effect in Photoshop

Step 16

Now just place a nice texture on top of the other layers, I'm using a concrete texture courtesy of Shutterstock. You can donwload it here. Also you can add more elements like a milk splash I added on her leg.

Stylish Light Effect in Photoshop

Conclusion

You can finish the design with some fine tuning, like reducing the size of some elements and add more details. The effect is just a mix of some other techniques I have already explained how to do them. Light effects with light backgrounds are always tricky because we need dark areas to make them visible also textures always give a nice touch to any design. The idea of this tutorial was just to create a nice and stylish light effect like the Sparkling hot girl but with a light background.

Stylish Light Effect in Photoshop

Another version

This is a simpler version without the particles.

Stylish Light Effect in Photoshop

Download the Photoshop File

Click here to download the Photoshop file used for this tutorial

About the author

User picture

My name is Fabio Sasso, I'm a graphic/web designer from Porto Alegre, Brazil and I'm the founder of Abduzeedo. I hope we can share lots of information, tips, and ideas through Abduzeedo. Also you can follow me on Twitter or my personal site at http://fabiosasso.com.

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54 Comments

Mickel08/24/2009

Nice tutorial! I especially like what you did in steps 3-5.

Thanks!

Gerard08/24/2009

That's awful :/

Evermind08/24/2009

Nice work, thanks for tutorial

cheers

Samuel Jesse08/24/2009

*cough*

Dingo08/24/2009

hmmm... is that the tutorial "how to make a beatiful girl ugly with photoshop"?

ODMG08/24/2009

The working and visual elements are great, smooth technique and various mixed elements;
but the chick is not that much of an eye candy if you ask me.
Thanks for the tutorial though :)

Phil Davis`08/24/2009

Interesting tut, IMO I think step #7 is a bad idea...but thanks for the tutorial!

Anonymous08/24/2009

that's like the worst ever tutorial in abduzeedo.com... ever!!!
please dont upload those kinda crap

exidium08/24/2009

I felt there's no need for step 7... the lines are just bothering the viewer, it's just visual pollution. I would work a little with the background also, the dull grey scale gradient is kinda empty.

About the stripes, why don't you play with some colors in them? Blur them out, make em look light some sort of light.
Maybe they can even " decompose" the girl, giving the idea she's being made of " light stripes".

I do like the concept, tho. Keep it up, Fabio!

Slizzie08/24/2009

Nice and simple!
All the tutorials are not going to be super exciting or complicated.
You can actually take this design and take it further if you want to.

Anonymous08/24/2009

this is awesome! i love photoshop! :)

Genre08/24/2009

Some of the first things you did, especially step 7 just look like cheap, no-skill filter effects. They might impress the teenage girls who are used to "playin around on the imac lolololol!!!!!!1" but they just don't look good to me.

The simpler version without step 7 looks much better imo, but I agree that this is definitely not one of your better articles.

Anonymous08/24/2009

get a new webhost man ! :/
the images take years to load . wtf.

iArts08/24/2009

What is worng with abduzeedo lastly?...I mean look at the old stuff and look at this...This is horrible if you ask me...
Fabio,we know you can do magic inside Photoshop,so we hope to see tutorials on making this magic...No offense,you're still the man)))

Brukhar08/24/2009

I think the alternate version is better. :)

Featured here: http://www.presidiacreative.com/best-of-the-web-33/

abduzeedo08/24/2009

Hey guys, thanks for the comments, I'm just trying to show some techniques this one is not advanced but I have received quite a lot of emails asking how to do that ;)

If you have suggestions for tuts just let me know as well :)

MichaelRye08/24/2009

This is so bad!!! It looks like it was done by someone who just learned photoshop and is experimenting with layers and different filters. Very amateur example of usage of photoshop.
What happened to abduzeedo.com ? Lately tutorials are very dull !!!!!!!!!!

Dulas08/24/2009

Praise abduzeedoo...you are theshit.com. Nice.

malicho08/24/2009

must be nice to have cinema 4D. what average joe graphic designer actually buys 4D to use cheap little potshot 3D stuff for photoshop?

tom122333444408/24/2009

i like it. idk why everyone doesnt...

ionut popa08/24/2009

Pretty nice tutorial, not for the end result but for the explanations and advice about the effects! thanks

jewad08/24/2009

his is a good tut.

But for some of the people saying stuff, They should add there own style to the image as well as taking tips from this tut. Thats what you should always do.

ricardoFX08/25/2009

i think FABIO is one of the best artists from Latin America,independent of the quality of this turorial this does not detract in your talent.
perhaps the easiest way he found to show some effects of light,but I'm sure he is very advanced in photoshop,there are other ways to achieve these effects I would do it another way and the best way to learn is to testing.
it´s just a easy tutorial show easy ways to do light effects,but,abduzeedo is still one of the best.

simples mas você é foda irmão, é nos Fabio;

abraços

Simon08/25/2009

You put milk on her bum...why?

Starchild08/25/2009

The idea of a tutorial is to practice the technique and then extend it. That's probably why there are lots of poor quality designs out there, because people just do what they see in tutorials and leave it at that. These are merely guidelines, not how to be a graphic designer.

Anchalan08/25/2009

Really Good.

Most interesting ideas08/26/2009

I like photo before High Pass effect :)

Jer08/26/2009

Man, you've got some rude people in your audience Fabio. I admire you for staying polite in the face of such bad manners.

This is a good, if simple, tutorial. I would agree that the Find Edges filter hurts the overall result. Even if it does help to separate her somewhat from the background, there's probably better ways of doing that. But overall it's nice. Thanks for everything you do, keep up the great work.

AndyDeGroo08/26/2009

That's what happens when one sets standards so high and later creates something not so polished and perfect - rants, rants and rants.

Never the less tutorial is helpful and explains the matter of question really good.
If asked, I would explain it this way: To create light effects on light background the background has to be a little bit darker than light effects.

Fabio has done great job by explaining how to achieve that step by step and what tools to use, but 7th step makes the final result look horrible.

Emmachinedu08/27/2009

Interesting all the way

Emmachinedu08/27/2009

Interesting all the way

LizaLo08/27/2009

Intersting Tutorial, but i guess, you could find a pic of a gril a little bit more cute .lol

thekkumthala14308/29/2009

best

H.M-Design08/30/2009

So nice dear

I'm utilize of it

Please check my sample

http://www.iraqup.com/uploads/20090830/Nc0x6-W2gV_934405802.jpg

Thanks

KGile09/01/2009

It's got some good tips in it, however the overall result of this design wasn't all that great.

But you guys need to remember this is to learn new techniques. Following a tutorial is not meant to copy the exact image. It's meant to teach you a specific technique.

Anyways, check out www.knrdesigns.com

Keep up the good work!

messiah.2g09/01/2009

awesome tute.. here's my effort.

http://photos-d.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak-snc1/hs169.snc1/6360_12428319443...

Stevo Mighty09/02/2009

I like the model :D instead of your tutorial.
Just Kidding lol

uud09/05/2009

so Wonderfull

Adrian (Argentina)09/09/2009

Thanks fabio for share this tuturial with us.
I like it, is very useful

i0_09/09/2009

very useful!!!
thx so much!!!

Anonymous09/15/2009

I am grateful for all the tutorials you post. It's always good to practice or get ideas for projects. Also I like the girl. She looks like a normal person and not a supermodel.

Dmitry Futoryan09/16/2009

Wow, I'm also amazed by the rudeness of your audience Fabio.

I just did the tutorial, and skipped the steps I disagreed with (after trying them) and adapted it to suit my needs (hint hint morons).

It turned out a really nice image. Thanks Fabio.

Interestingly enough, of those who insulted our dude, which ones of you are writing tutorials and ACTIVELY contributing to your design community on a daily basis? That's what I figured..

Candice09/17/2009

Jeeze.

I thought it was awesome.

I don't see what these people are freaking out about o_O

ALackOfColor09/21/2009

What's wrong with all you people who are dissing Fabio and this tutorial . Sure some of the steps kinda ruined how the girl looks and the picture might have not have turned out amazing but the tutorial certainly taught me new techniques and the tutorial is to teach you how to add some nice lightings to a light background , which it certainly did . Plus Abduzeedo is one of the sites that actually contributes to the design community daily , Fabio isn't getting enough credit for his work . It's a pity he has some of you rude viewers .

Pixel Prince09/26/2009

Love the concepts!

Abdallah09/27/2009

Great !just the tutorial i've always been looking for .Thanks man
You rock !!

Bella M09/29/2009

I love the tips about the light effects! Thank you so much, Fabio! I really admire your effort and generosity.

I agree with Dmitry Futoryan: instead of insulting one of the best designers and excellent contributor to the design community, why don't you write tutorials to share your knowledge?

BrotherRidge10/11/2009

It works for me.

DressBG10/22/2009

Very good tutorial ;)

The girl that is not cute. rsrss

ram10/24/2009

Cool tutorial for beginners...Learned lots...Thanx...Guess some people can't help complaining.

clippingimages10/28/2009

Great work :) Final output is really something to praise :)

Indrek11/09/2009

Very nice tutorial. I've always wondered how this wonderful effect is made

Korean11/17/2009

Wowwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww!!!!!!!!
It's hantastic!!!!
??????????????? ?? ???

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