[SKETCHi]

[h1]Painting Lightning[/h1]
Here is an example of what we will be making.


Click here to get the photo I used.

1. Make a new doccument or open your image.
 a. Make a new layer and title it Lightning.
 b. Select the brush tool . Set it to 1 pixel soft. (You may need a larger brush size depending on the size of your image). Set the opacity to 20%.
 c. Zoom in. Starting from the top, paint a jumpy line downward. Try not to over due it, you want the lines to be some what straight, but still jagged.
 Screen Shot
This will be the trunk, or main branch of the lightning. Be sure to have plenty of curves and places to branch out from.

2. Branching out and brightening.
 a. Starting from the curves, continue painting downward and outward.
 Screen Shot
 b. Change your brush size to 3 pixels, or slightly larger than the original. Paint over all of the branches.
 Screen Shot
 c. Select your 1 pixel brush again. Paint over all of the branches once more, but this time branch off from all of the branches and continue to paint passed the ends of the original branches. You can reconnect the new smaller branches back to the main branches if you want.
 Screen Shot
 d. Repeat step 2c.

3. Blending mode and atmospheric glow.
 a. Open the blending options for the Lightning layer. Set it to Overlay.
 Screen Shot
 b. Duplicate the Lightning layer, title it Lightning 2.
 c. Make a new layer and title it Glow. Set the blending mode to Overlay.
 Screen Shot
 d. Select the brush tool again. Set it to 100 pixel soft. (Again, size may change depending on your image size). Keep the opacity at 20%.
 e. Paint over the lightning, and above them in the clouds.
 Screen Shot

4. Reflection.
 a. In the image I used, there was a lake. Obviously there would be a reflection of the lightning in the lake. Make a new layer and title it Reflection.
 b. Select the brush tool once more. Keep the opacity at 20%.
 c. Paint a small area under the lightning, just one stroke. It shouldn't over power the rest.
 Screen Shot

5. File > Save...

Finished! Yeah, thats all. I promise.

If you like this tutorial, please Click Here to register.

Click the link below to download the Photoshop file for this tutorial.
Painting Lightning PSD

[Grapes]

very nice, another good one. 

[ZT]

beautiful

[RichT]

Awesome tutorial. Gives an awesome effect. Someone needs to do a Star-Wars esque force lightning photo now.

[heero yuy]

That's really good as always SKETCHi.

Tremendous job!

[SKETCHi]

Woot! Got on good-tutorials today.

[RichT]

w3wt!

[SKETCHi]

Just got on P2L. It looks like they are growing as well, which means more hits for us heh..

[Saven]

THIS WIlL BE A GREAT TUTORIAL FOR MY START BACK TO GRAPHICS YAYYYYYY

yea im going to start back with graphics but make more ones like this.. how shal i say it 

clean
modern
and more mature

not the cartoon things any more

[Tortured-x]

firstly - great tutorial sketch, although i'd love it if you'd use [img] tags instead of the [url] ones for the screenshots.
secondly - i thought good-tutorials was a sign up your site and add your tutorial type of tutorial engine?
 well atleast it use to be when it first opened, ah god, the good ol' days...

[SKETCHi]

Good-Tutorials does not require registration. You have to give a website title and stuff... anyway, thanks a lot. This is, IMO, one of my better tutorials.

[DarthBob]

I found this tutorial with google, because I was looking for adding some lightning to a signature my friend made for me. I enjoyed the tutorial and followed instructions, but am now having some problems with adding it to my sig. I am a beginner and just getting started. Thanks for any help

[SKETCHi]

Could you be a little more specific? What exactly are you having trouble with?

[DarthBob]

Sorry about that; I was in middle of alot of thoughts when i posted   What I am trying to do is have the character in my sig give lightning bolts out his hands when they come up. I am probably trying to jump ahead too much here but it has got me into working with ImageReady.
So what I have been trying to do today is add is to frame 8 and copy it over to some of the others. I would like to make it animated to where is gets more intense with the next 5 frames or so, and then stops when his hands go down.
So far I have tried adding this tutorial to the project, and have had mixted effects. I need to study more and get the hang of placement and where things should be placed with relation ship to effects I am trying to add.
I think I am gonna try starting with just creating lightning that is animated and then work on implementing it into the signature.

[foxshox]

yeah your getting a bit ahead of yourself there, its a cool idea, but flash is definatley better for complex animations like that.. im sure if i understood exactly what you wanted to do, i could do it, but i guess i need an exact kind of description.. oh and something else, mimicking actual movement is a bitch in imageready