Create a Glowing Light Painting Effect

Apr 30th in Effects by Fabio

A few weeks ago a friend of mine had published an article on my blog about Light painting. I was really impressed by all the effects these guys can create taking photos with long exposures. Then I thought it would be a nice idea to do that in Photoshop. So in this tutorial I will show you an easy, and very fast way, to create a light painting in Photoshop.

Author: Fabio

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.

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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User Comments

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  1. Rich April 30th

    Nice!


  2. Has.n April 30th

    Cool one its very useful for other effects!!!! Thanks man!!


  3. Sean Hodge April 30th

    The original concept Fabio submitted to us has a higher cool factor, but we decided not to use the Beatles image due to copyright issues. You can see the original concept on Fabio’s site. Thanks Fabio for working through the copyright issues with this tutorial. Good job. Thx.


  4. NESC April 30th

    Simple nice work :)


  5. Seraphim Collective April 30th

    NICE!! I can see a plethora of ideas coming out of this technique.


  6. Godonholiday April 30th

    wow, well done covering the copyright!! This is nice, but the original photo was so good to start with its going to be hard to make this my own! hahah i nice challenge though. great work.


  7. Nick April 30th

    I’ve done this with real photography, but it’s awesome to know how to translate that into photoshop! Great job! Thanks!


  8. D. Carreira April 30th

    Another great tutorial with the quality of PSDTUTS.COM!

    Thank you very much!

    David Carreira


  9. Ben Griffiths April 30th

    Cool effect, thanks!


  10. pica April 30th

    very cool effect
    im just surprised by the copyrigth issue, i know it’s a big one but i didnt think the first attempt was that close…
    anyway nice one

    one thing:
    i almost didn’t find the blending mode used on the brush, i can imagine some people might not read it and wonder why it wont work
    … and some might not know you can use it on a brush


  11. Brent April 30th

    This has been done in the glow tutorial


  12. 1984 April 30th

    Good ! ;-)


  13. Markus April 30th

    Yes! I was waiting for this ;)! Easier than i thought, but still nice! :D


  14. Daniel April 30th

    Why we had to create a path for each one of the figures when we duplicate the first dude layer 3 times ;-)

    Daniel


  15. Harry April 30th

    Awesome tut :)


  16. danneil April 30th

    not very cool…
    i love all fabio’s tutarial but this one is just too simple and not cool…


  17. Fabio Sasso April 30th

    @Daniel, Sorry that was my mistake… it’s not necessary to create a path for each figure…

    Thanks ;)


  18. Bruno Mendoza April 30th

    Very, very nice!!!

    Basic elements can make awesome effects. Sometimes, I think as I did not think before about this. It’s so logic…

    Fabio is a greatest design!


  19. Sean Hodge April 30th

    @Daniel & @Fabio - I edited Step 3. I think that fixes the issue. Thanks.


  20. riq pepino April 30th

    i dont understand step 4,5,6… need explaination


  21. Razvan April 30th

    Nice effect, good work Abduzeedo!


  22. LOSWL April 30th

    This is sweet!!..I can see me using this technique in many ways, thanks!! :o)


  23. Danny April 30th

    Very nice effect! I really like it


  24. Grafiko April 30th

    realy nice, and easy ;)


  25. Joe April 30th

    weird but cool tut, thanks!


  26. giackop April 30th

    Cool!!


  27. Constantin Potorac April 30th

    Hah… that was really easy. I love it. You have such an artist mind :))


  28. Wouter April 30th

    Hot tutorial nice outcome nice idea :)

    Greetz


  29. Lamin Barrow April 30th

    Amazing and inspirational work as always Fabio. Thanks for all the time and effort.:)


  30. Rom April 30th

    I love this tut!!! thank you Fabio


  31. Qbrushes April 30th

    nice outcome.


  32. Nate April 30th

    Score!


  33. Snorri3D April 30th

    nice one and also great to have this kind of tutorial again.


  34. can April 30th

    ohh super and nice


  35. goldenthunder April 30th

    way cool - thanks fabio


  36. Terry April 30th

    fabio!!!

    enter the tutorial writer job thing!!!!


  37. K3v April 30th

    Really cool to see how easy it is to achieve this effect…
    Well done Fabio! :)


  38. eli April 30th

    It’s easir to make the real thing, but can be usefull, thanks


  39. James April 30th

    Wow. amazing, always looking forward to your tutorials man :D

    the picture reminds me too much of the Abbey Road album


  40. MONSTER April 30th

    Clever!


  41. Bobsandor April 30th

    I was a little confused on this one too.

    1. I couldn’t seem to finagle my brush to look the same as shown in step 4, like how it tapers. I did confirm each and every setting was the same. Although I did have to select a different but slightly similar secondary brush.
    2. I didn’t see where the brush color was specified.
    3. I didn’t see where the blend mode for the dudes was specified.

    I played around and found that a yellow color with Color Dodge kinda did the trick, but I didn’t get the fading that Fabio got.

    Hopefully someone can help.


  42. Joefrey Mahusay April 30th

    Awesome. Thanks a lot Fabio. :)


  43. glsmaster April 30th

    Pretty cool tut dude.

    Cheers Fabio!!!

    ;)


  44. Website Design April 30th

    Great and Unique tutorial!


  45. LouieP April 30th

    cool, but i got a problem on step 4, about the dual brush :p


  46. Dr. Dirty Mind April 30th

    Oddly cool. I so wasn’t expecting that as a tutorial.


  47. Jonathan Solichin April 30th

    Nice, that’s one cool effect. Good job as always Zee :)


  48. jeff April 30th

    Hi,
    Thanks for the tut,
    I have a problem when I try to add pen pressure, It doesn’t work for me.
    I use CS3 Extended and installed wacom.
    How can I solve it?
    Regards


  49. Aminur Rahman [aka Tom R] April 30th

    nice


  50. arnaud April 30th

    Thx fabio :)


  51. Daniel April 30th

    very cool one ! thank you for this nice tut!


  52. Shane April 30th

    Great effect - thanks for posting. :)


  53. mbithi April 30th

    Thanks Fabio!Excellent tut once again!


  54. Elodesign April 30th

    I have a big issue on this tut step 6 : my Stroke Path is WHITE (the foreground color in the example), I don’t have this kind of overlay color mode ….
    I have to choose afterwards the overlay color mode for the dude layer and duplicate it to get something just OK …
    And YES I do have the color burn set for the dual brush, and I checked 10 times ALL the steps, so … what do I do wrong ?
    Thx to help me …


  55. jonasbmf April 30th

    nice tut, but i got a problem on step 4 on the dual brush too.


  56. Sam April 30th

    Super nice!


  57. KillaBoY April 30th

    i like it!


  58. Martin April 30th

    not really cool!


  59. André Sugai April 30th

    which blend mode you used to create the effect in step 6? congratulations on tutorial!


  60. Josh May 1st

    another great effect!


  61. Adil May 1st

    how did the dude layer got brifhter and brighter as u went along, pls explin tht step agin more clear like the colour u used, the blending mode used!
    fantastic tutorial after all
    regards
    adil


  62. aGS May 1st

    Is the first time that I see here something like.. “very cool and very easy to follow” and then “Which blend mode is this guy using” or “I’m lost with this and this”… LOL


  63. Andrew D May 1st

    Awesome I love this effect!


  64. ZaFaR May 1st

    Great! Like it Interesting keep it up fabio, thank for sharing.


  65. Jad Limcaco May 1st

    Great Tutorials, like always. I will try to incorporate this into one of my designs.

    Jad Graphics


  66. Constantin Potorac May 1st

    I love you tutorials Fabio. Keep them coming ;)


  67. Siva May 2nd

    V.Cool!


  68. Phodana May 3rd

    Looks cool… thx


  69. Ivan May 3rd

    This is wicked! Going to give it a try right now! :)


  70. Hell May 4th

    Could you Update the tutorial with the infos that some people have asked up this coment ??
    Layer mode, color, etc…

    The effect NEVER gets like yours because you’ve didn’t explained it soo good.


  71. Fabio Sasso May 4th

    @hell I’m sorry for that, I simply forgot the most important thing, the blend mode for the Lights folder, use COLOR DODGE, the rest remains the same ;)


  72. Blame May 5th

    which brush do we use? i dont have that brush.


  73. aznmonk May 6th

    I also do not have the brush that you use, could you please supply the brush or give us a link on where u got it? Thank you.


  74. Selya May 6th

    Hello Fabio, thank you for a great tutorial! but I also curious about brush question above:)


  75. Mohammad May 7th

    Thanks Fabio …

    we are waitting more from your creative !


  76. Hell May 7th

    @Fabio

    Thanks for that, now it gets similar to your result. :)


  77. Jauhari May 7th

    Perfect Tutorial ;)


  78. DarkMonk May 14th

    Thanx a lot, cool tutorial, but please update this tut with missing stuff about chosen color and blending modes - these are most confusing parts, yet most important.


  79. Scorpiono May 16th

    Hot stuff!


  80. Fabio Sasso May 20th

    @blame - you can use a basic brush, but make sure and use 0 for hardness, or you can apply a Gaussian blur as well.

    Thanks a lot for the comments.


  81. RUGRLN May 20th

    Could u plzzz explain how to get the brush, I can’t get that faded effect on sides.. Other than that, great tutorial!!


  82. Mathiasa May 22nd

    The same effect can easily be created with a camera and a flashlight!


  83. christiant May 31st

    Nice work buddy, I used this for a project it came out awesome man, this effect works great with so many applications. All around great TUT,

    -Christian


  84. smartguy June 1st

    I’m stuck at part 4, i don’t see any options to set a brush like that. I am using CS3 xtended but i don’t how he setup that brush ? but nice tutorial.


  85. sb179 June 11th

    great brother, i want to learn lots of thing about photoshop. Can u help me???


  86. sb179 June 11th

    great brother, i want to learn lots of thing in photoshop. Can u help me???


  87. anonymous July 2nd

    This tutorial is really vague, especially the brush part. You don’t even say color the brush should be. That’s kinda essential stuff in a tutorial.


  88. Alex July 11th

    woow esta genial! muchas gracias esta increible, lo intentare, saludos desde mexico.


  89. Mansoor July 24th

    Thanks for Posting.
    Good Tut.


  90. Matt R. July 29th

    For anyone struggling to create the brush I just opened the download on the bottom of this page : http://psdtuts.com/tutorials-effects/advanced-glow-effects/
    and selected the glow layer and copied its layer style.
    Next I pasted the layer style into my dude layer and it appeared pretty similar.


  91. Nate July 29th

    Did you pay him for this tutorial? It’s lacking essential information, as a lot of people are having trouble. you should assume that everyone reading this is a complete photoshop newb. How do you get the tapered brush? I set hardness to zero, applied all the settings you are using, and the brush is a solid width the whole way through.


  92. kevin August 26th

    dude. i cant do this thing on cs2.. huhuhuhuhuhuhuhu…


  93. loon September 7th

    dude. you have the most ridiculously ingenious tutorials ever.
    you are god.


  94. mithun September 18th

    Verry nice


  95. beta November 16th

    The brush in Step 4 is in the Assorted Brushes load it into your brushes and click Append. I am confused about the chosen brush colour. Great tutorials, thanks so much.


  96. Mark January 2nd

    Bloody awesome


  97. LD January 6th

    This is the most poorly explained tutorial I have ever seen.


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