lightning

[ibclare]

Learned how to make a simulation of lightning. Needs some refinement but it was fun and fast. It was actually meant as part of a series of blend mode tutorials, "how to make lightning using the screen mode" and caught my eye.

It's a layer over BG filled with clouds, diff clouds, leveled pretty much the same way as done in the hair extractions using channels -- pop the white, adjust gamma -- invert the layer, then set layer mode to screen, apply layer mask and paint out the unwanted streaks. I made another layer for the glow.

In illustrating use of the screen mode which ignores black, he said "now to get rid of the black pixels, I could use the 'tragic wand' . . . " I never heard that one before!

 

[$1r_M4x1mu$]

Nice job Clare

And yeah, the diff clouds technique is a very interesting approach to lightning creation, pretty useful, fast and effective.

here's the tut for some of our members interested in this technique.
Create a super easy lightning from scratch

Please keep it up.

 

[ibclare]

I like the use of the gradient and also a longer segment of the clouds difference piece. I think I'll try another version ... but later. Tx SirMax

 

[Sierraccr]

I discovered this about a month ago. Great fun!

 

[SeniorS]

Good job!


P.S. I found very challenging part about blending lightning in sky and clouds.

 

[fenix]

'tragic wand'

Good lightning Clare! Sure ain´t easy making it look right!

 

[ibclare]

Good lightning Clare! Sure ain´t easy making it look right!

TY Fenix, I appreciate the encouragement.
I'm not really quite satisfied. Too fuzzy. That's why I think if the clouds difference filled less of the canvas it would be easier to get an interesting, less fuzzy line. I'm sure I could find ways to do that; already used a bit of transformation and erasure.