Creating Your Own Rays of Sunlight
Written 12 years ago by Mark Evans
Some of the most impressive woodland photographs are those with rays of sunlight streaking through the trees making the landscape look dreamy and surreal, but when the lighting isn’t perfect in the woods, and you want to add your own magical atmosphere to make the perfect shot, why not create some of your own light rays in Photoshop. It’s actually easier than you might think.
For this tutorial, we will be using the above photograph, which was taken by Flickr user, Alex Bailey and we’ll be adding our own rays of light to it.
Step One
Open your Image in Photoshop.
Step Two
Duplicate the Background Layer. (Right click the background layer, click Duplicate Layer.)
Step Three
While on the top layer, go to Image > Adjustments > Levels and take the middle slider as far right as you can, this defines the light source.
Step Four
I like to have my rays white, so you can go Image > Adjustments > Desaturate, otherwise skip to the next step to leave a little colour in them.
Step Five
To get our rays, click Filter > Blur > Radial Blur, set the ‘Amount’ to 100, make sure ‘Zoom’ is selected and set it on ‘Best Quality’. Drag the ‘Blur Centre’ to where your light source is. Hit ok. Do this a couple of times to blur the rays a bit or alternatively, go to Filters > Blur > Gaussian Blur and set a value of between 3 and 10.
Step Six
Change the layers’ Blending Options to ‘Screen’
Step Seven
Adjust the rays’ brightness by clicking Image > Adjustments > Levels and drag the far right slider across to the left until you are satisfied with the results. Also, try dragging the middle slider to the left instead of the right one, I find sometimes the light source get less ‘burned out’ by doing this.
Final Result
With a little bit of tinkering you can get a pretty natural looking result, although I have found it’s best not to overdo it too much. Try it for yourself, good luck and go have fun in the woods!
This article was part of the Landscape Photography Series.
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Comments
Geat tutorial Mark, I have tried to follow the steps but I am obviously missing something. Should I be using new layers, masks etc during each stage? I have only just started using photoshop “CS2” and I am still finding it confusing.
Hi Andy, you don’t need masks or new layers in between steps, all alterations are on the copy of the background layer, following it through should get you some rays! What part are you stuck at?
Hi Mark. follwed the whole process through. No problem to step 6, but not sure how to get the photo up at step 7.
Hi Andy, with step 6 you set the layers blend mode to ‘screen’ in the drop down box on the right of your screen (the box to the left of opacity, above your layers), this box should have other options like ‘Hard Light’, ‘Soft Light’ ‘Multiply’ etc, but just set it to the ‘Screen’ option, then do step 7.
Hope that helps you out a bit! Feel free to ask more questions if you’re still stuck.
Thanks Mark. I realy appreciate your help. I will give it a try over the week-end.
Mark. Worked a treat, thanks very much for your help.
Thank you so much for these instructions. Can’t wait to look thru my photos for something to try this on!
U R great.. Realy cool trick….
thnx Mark. I tried it and succeed. God bless you.
Going to be doing woodland shots soon, so will go with your wonderfully clear tutorial in mind – Thanks
Hello :-)
I’ve followed all steps and it’s not working :-( I have the two layers and have followed everything, but I don’t know how the rays end up on the original pic? Is there later unlocking or merging that needs to happen? Please help x
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