hey I''m pretty new to graphic making and video game design and stuff. And i know this is a VERY nOObish question, but how do you make those lightsaber effects in photoshop. And any other cool effect you could help me out with would be cool. Thanks for the help! yO!

quote: Original post by Satty
hey I''m pretty new to graphic making and video game design and stuff. And i know this is a VERY nOObish question, but how do you make those lightsaber effects in photoshop. And any other cool effect you could help me out with would be cool. Thanks for the help!

yO!

What do you mean by lightsaber effects? Do you just want to draw a light saber? Are you wondering about how to make it look like it''s glowing?

well, both really. I''ve seen pic''s that I''ve been told were done in photoshop that used the effect. IT looked like a lightsaber in one of the times so thats how i always descirbe it. But yeah i pretty much mean the glowing effects in general.

One way is to select an object of your choice, feather the selection, and then increase the brightness.

...
sry but i am a nOOb when it comes to anyting really big into graphics. How exactly do i feather and then increase brightness?

Well, what you would do is create a new Layer
Then you draw a "lightsabre" on top of the picture you are modifiying (say it''s a picture of you pretending to hold a sabre).
So you would use, say, the Line tool, maybe 3 or 4 pixels wide. Then you would use the Blur Filter to make the line a bit hazy. (maybe just 1 pixel of blur)
Now that would be your "sabre". To do the highlight effect,
you create another layer on top, then turn the mode of this layer to "Color Dodge". Draw a line again, smaller than the base one (so in our case 1 or 2 pixels), in a pure bright tone of the color you want to use as highlight.
Say if you chose a red/orange sabre, this line should be yellow to create a fire highlight. Use the Blur filter again to make things look smooth. Use the preview options to visualise how much blur is needed.
That should allow you a nice and simple neon glow effect, which is perfect for a lightsabre effect.
If the "Color Dodge" mode is too strong, you can mess with the opacity of the layer to adjust and make it look smoother.
Try to work with a few different colours to see what happens :
Red for the base, Yellow for the highlight.
Green and Yellow, Purple and Magenta, Blue and Cyan, it''s pretty easy to recreate the "classic" colours of sabres with a bit of messing around.


Sancte Isidore ora pro nobis !

Thanks for the help. I just started using the program though. Can anyone recomend a good tutorial?

I learned Photoshop Elements 2 by playing around with it. Start really simple and over time, learn to use different features to make stuff.

Scott Simontis
e-mail:ageofscott@comcast.net
AIM:ssimontis

thats more or less what I''ve been trying, but a good tutorial would still be good.

yO!

quote: Original post by Satty
Thanks for the help. I just started using the program though. Can anyone recomend a good tutorial?

There are a *lot* of Photoshop tutorials out htere that have the things you want (latesaber effect or the like).

One good place to start at is Spoono.com, they have tutorials there, and they have linkage to GREAT sites that have all the information you need my borther!

hope that helped



edit: i quoted the wrong pearson at first :\

[edited by - aftermath on September 21, 2003 10:07:32 PM]