Pearl light effect

[Lompoc42]

As I have been heavy heavy heavy into working lately I've had no real time to come on the board and play! }:\ }:\ |

However, I'm about to embark on a new web page design and I have a cool idea if I can just get the effect I'm looking for. I haven't actually tried doing it yet (hence the no time part) but I wanted to see what the lovely people of the PSG forum could come up with. Here's the challenge:

Have you ever seen a car that's white at first glance, but when it goes by you notice it has an opal/pearl quality to its lusture? I observed this the other day and thought to myself "self, you should try and do that in photoshop". So...What I'm looking for is more or less a burst of light from any direction that gives off that opal/pearl like lusture in its wake. I'm interested to see what can be done. Mark, you should be particularly good with this (not that there's anything you're NOT good at in photoshop) because of your genius at creating glass, depth, and beautifully lusterful things. I'm gonna give it a crack tonight and see what I can do. Thanks folks!! I'm excited. B7

 

[sfm]

interesting idea
I look forward to see what appears with this challenge [:I
I can't do this as I have limited time before I leave and must unfortunatly work for the next 20 days full steam just to have 10 days off [doh]
sfm

 

[theKeeper]

Howdy Howdy!

What I'm looking for is more or less a burst of light from any direction that gives off that opal/pearl like lusture in its wake.

I'm not really sure i'm following you on the exact effect you're after...?

Is this to be applied to an object of some kind? Like... as a material/texture?

 

[wbiss]

[stuned] Lompac42! I think that I "sorta" (kinda) know what you mean, but any "lighting effect" is going to be dependent on the subject background... no? [confused]

 

[docilebob]

You mean like pearl or chamelion paint, right ?

 

[sPECtre]

the correct term is iridescent (irisation in french), I think... It's like the decomposition of the colors to the ones of the spectrum (no pun intended)

I don't recall any tut for that, beside a pearl tutorial at http://www.thewebmachine.com/
To give the effect you describe to something you could play with some layer styles, like spherical chromatic gradients and add grain to them, and lower the opacity of the style... along with hue or colour mode

 

[docilebob]

Bubble Tutorial ?by austizmo

1. Create a new document, 300x300. (size doesnt matter, but it needs to be square) Rename the layer sphere.
2. View --> New Guide and make 2 new guides, 1 horizontal at 50% and 1 vertical at 50%
3. Fill your layer with black.
4. Filter --> Render --> Lens Flare Brightness: 100% Lens Type: 105mm Prime
5. Filter --> Distort --> Polar Coordinates : Polar to Rectangular
6. Edit --> Transform --> Rotate 180 degrees
7. Filter --> Distort --> Polar Coordinates : Rectangular to Polar
8. This is where the guides come in. Choose the Ecliptical Marquee Tool, and center it on the guides. Hold the Ctrl + Alt keys and drag your selection around the newly formed sphere.
9. Selection --> Inverse and clear the selection. Now your left with a sphere on an transparent background. This is where things start to get interesting.
10. Open the Layer Styles box by double clicking the sphere layer.
11. Give your layer a inner shadow and unclick the Use Gloabal Light box. Change the angle to -120. Thats negative 120. Change the distance to 25 and the size to 15. Lower the Opacity to 25%.
12. Now give it an inner glow. Change the glow color to white and the size to about 15. CLick ok.
13. Set the layer blending mode to screen.
14. Create a new layer and drag it under your sphere layer. Name this layer color.
15. Ctrl + Click your sphere layer and grab your gradient tool.
16. This is a fun part. Select the rainbow gradient and change the mode to Difference. Now make random lines until you have a pretty garbled rainbow. You may want to turn off the Sphere layer. (you want to use the radial gradient for this)
17. With your sphere still selected go: Filter --> Distort --> Wave and hit randomize once or twice. Click ok.
18. Click the layer mask button, and mask out some of the color with the air brush.
19. Set the layer blending mode to screen and turn down the opacity to about 70%.
20. Now for the highlights. Create a new layer and name it highlights. Drag it to the top of the layer stack.
21. Make sure your fore ground color is set to white, and select the Crosshatch #1 brush. (NOte: I used a brush that i created for this purpose. You may download it and use it instead.)
22. Brush in a highlight right over the brightened spot of the bubble.
23. Your just about done. All thats left to do is add a background. I find light pastel colors work best with this method.

Hope that helps.