tHEORY tHURSDAY – Lighting effects
Hi friends, Heather (hedderlee) here to share one of my tried and true Photoshop tricks, a lighting effect!
Take a look at this layout:
I put the focus on my daughter by brightening up the paper behind her. After all, she is being a light wherever she goes, right? 
I used Misschifis’ Groovy Kinda Luv kit.
In another layout using Matahati Designs’ In the Greens kit, I put the spotlight on the lantern:
Let’s take a closer look at the extra oomph added with the lighting effect, shall we?
Before the lighting effect:
After:
How did you do that, Heather, you ask?
Here’s a new project to outline the how-to:
I’m using Andilynn Designs’ Little Lovebirds kit here. The couple is such a cute element, isn’t it? I actually want to focus on the kiss, so I will run the lighting effect on the bride & groom.
I hit ctrl-J to duplicate the bride & groom layer:
Then Filter>Render>Lighting Effects:
It takes me to this:
I usually use omni the most out of the drop down menu, and in this case, it is the best one. Position the circle right on the kiss by grabbing the middle button. Then you can grab the other buttons to make the circle bigger or smaller. You can adjust all the sliders until you get the desired effect.
The screen should now look like this:
The lighting seems a bit strong for me, so I dropped the opacity to 50%. THIS is why I run the effect on a duplicate layer, although you don’t have to. Better than having to redo mistakes!
Look at before and after shots:
You can also run the effect on the background paper, right behind the kiss, for a variation.
(Sorry about the wonky photo sizes – can you tell I’m still a newbie?)
Have fun with this trick!
Until next time,
July 17th, 2008 at 8:20 am
What a cool idea!!! Thanks so much for teaching us about this. Great LOs too!
July 17th, 2008 at 9:02 am
Thanks, Heather. What a fun way to highlight a photo. I know just the photo I’m going to use the technique on.
July 17th, 2008 at 10:10 am
Great tutorial Heather! Love this–I am going to have to try it right away!
July 18th, 2008 at 10:29 am
Ooo this is terrific! Gotta try that…now that I know how:) Thanks!
July 18th, 2008 at 8:15 pm
Heather, YOU ROCK!! The minute I saw the first LO I thought this must be Heather. Thank you for sharing your magic.
July 20th, 2008 at 5:03 am
Heather, you are awesome!!! Thanks for that tut, I was wondering how you did that!!
July 21st, 2008 at 6:28 am
Awesome Awesome Awesome!!! Thanks so much for sharing this!