2 Replies Latest reply: Jun 10, 2013 12:56 PM by aronbothman RSS

    How can I make an object appear to glow (produce it's own light)?

    T.Bux Community Member

      Can anyone help me with this? ex. make a plant glow like a lightning bug or things like a "light saber"?  have tried lots of things but nothing looks realistic.

        • 1. Re: using CS6 == How can I make an object appear to glow (produce it's own light)?
          c.pfaffenbichler Community Member

          Good day!

          Could you please post an image you want to edit thusly?

           

          If you make a fairly good Mask you could lift an element onto a Layer of its own and try using the Layer Styles Outer Glow and Drop Shadow. (edited)

           

          Regards,

          Pfaffenbichler

          • 2. Re: using CS6 == How can I make an object appear to glow (produce it's own light)?
            aronbothman Adobe Employee

            Hello!  When something appears to glow, the glowing object will often appear high in value (i.e. close to white) with very little color, with a much more colorful halo around it.  You will see this in the lightsaber effect, as well as neon signs, street lamps, and similar sorts of light sources. 

             

            To emulate this in Photoshop, here is an example of a yellow-orange light source glowing against a dark forest background, which could be a firefly or something like that. 

             

            I began with a stock image of a forest at night, and using an airbrush with white selected for the foreground color, painted a small circle on a transparent layer.

            whitecircle_01.png

             

            To indicate the color of the light, I selected the layer with the white circle on it, and clicked the Layer Effects button within the layers panel. 

            fx_btn.png

            From the drop-down menu, I selected Color Overlay.

            color_overlay.png

             

            I chose a very saturated yellow, and turned the opacity down to around 23%.  This shows the color of the light while keeping it close to white, indicating the brightness. 

            coloroverlay_demo.png

             

            To show the glow, I chose Outer Glow from inside the Layer Effects panel.  I chose a similar saturated yellow, set the blending mode to Screen, and set the opacity to around 80%.

            outerglow_Demo.png

             

            And here is the final image.  Is this similar to the effect you were going for? 

            glow_demo_final.png