Thread: Spotlight Effect in Photoshop
Threaded View
-
September 8th, 2009 09:47 AM #1
- Join Date
- Aug 2009
- Location
- Sunshine Coast, Qeensland, Australia
- Posts
- 5,328
- Mentioned
- 6 Post(s)
- Tagged
- 837 Thread(s)
- Sex:
Spotlight Effect in Photoshop
Take this picture of a Porsche as an example, it is a little bit underexposed and could be touched up with just a little bit of levels or curves. Instead of just brightening the image which would be our natural instant, let’s create a bit more interest and instead create a spotlight effect.
Begin by creating a selection with the elliptical marquee tool.
Choose Select>Transform Selection
A bounding box will appear
You can now rotate, scale and resize the selection
Rotate the selection so that the oval falls on the car at an angle as shown
Press enter/return to apply the transformation to the selection
We are now going to create a curves adjustment layer.
Choose a new adjustment layer from the bottom of the layers palette and select curves
You should now see the curves dialog box
Move the mouse outside the box and into the image, you will notice that it is now an eyedropper tool
Click and drag and you will see a little circle appear on the diagonal line of the curve. This is the tonal range of the area that you are moving the mouse over. Take a note of where the range is on the curve.
Click and drag on the curve. Move the point up and notice that the image will be lightened.
If you look at the layers palette, you will see the adjustment layer with a layer mask applied. Notice that the area of the mask where the selection was present is now white.
Click on the mask to make it active (It should already be active by default)
We will now soften the lights edge
Choose Filter>blur>Gaussian blur
The spotlight effect should be looking pretty good by now.
The final thing is to remove the effect from the areas that would be in shadow and not illuminated in real life. (such as the air)
Choose black for the foreground color and select the brush tool
Click and drag the paintbrush and you will paint away the adjustment from the regions you desire because you are painting on a mask
And finally we have our result, a soft spotlight on our car. Compare this to the starting image to see the difference.
You can lower the opacity of the adjustment layer if you desire to tone down the effect a little. You can use this technique on all kinds of photos including people. This is a great way to draw attention to certain areas of images and put things under the err… spotlight.
Find more tutorials like this one @ PhotoshopCAFELast edited by Big V; August 15th, 2011 at 01:49 PM.
Please do not PM me to ask for support - please use the relevant thread or forum.
Please Post in English or at least include English Translations
Thread Information
Users Browsing this Thread
There are currently 1 users browsing this thread. (0 members and 1 guests)
Similar Threads
-
Effect.... Text Crystal - Photoshop CS5
By Letícia® in forum PS CS5 TutorialsReplies: 32Last Post: June 25th, 2014, 05:57 AM -
Photoshop Tutorial - Episode 23 - Chrome Effect
By nofx1994 in forum Video TutorialsReplies: 2Last Post: March 3rd, 2012, 01:05 PM -
Need help with light effect in photoshop
By gor17981 in forum GraphicsReplies: 8Last Post: May 19th, 2011, 12:30 PM -
Create the Matrix Effect - Photoshop Tutorial
By _Deano_ in forum PS CS5 TutorialsReplies: 0Last Post: May 16th, 2011, 09:42 PM -
Photoshop Tutorial - Episode 6 - 3D Effect
By nofx1994 in forum Video TutorialsReplies: 1Last Post: December 1st, 2010, 08:46 PM
Funny Mate.
Happy 4th of July