Light Saber Effects in Photoshop

Well being a big star wars fan, one of the first thing I tried in photoshop had to be the light saber, so I tried the simplest method I could think of then which i will be explaining to u below. There is another method that is NOT MINE, but was in the form of a tutorial on _www.ryan-w.com_, which I would be explaining as well. Before this lets keep some points in mind-

1) There are a gazillion more tutorials but none on instructables so here i am

2) I am discribing only the method to add the light saber effect in a picture, (videos are too cumbersome)

Step 1: GET UR PIC!!!!!

Simple get a pic of yourself or anyone holding a stick or a saber. (im using a random pic i found)

Step 2: START EDITING

BASIC STEPS
-open photoshop
-open pic in photoshop
-file
-open
-picture address

Step 3: SABER MAGIC

First we take the line tool
-make sure the background colour(top right corner) is white
-set the width of the line at about 8 pixel(8 px)

Now take the line tool and starting from the base of your hand or top of your hilt stretch a line to the desired length. (this white line will be ur saber core)

Step 4: THE GLOW

for the glow goto
-layer
-layer style
-outer glow

Playaround with the settings until you get the desired glow.
(i keep the setting at screen, with 100% opacity,0% noise and variable spread and size)

Step 5: VOILA - a LIGHTSABER

Just save and voila!

Comments

[tiggervil]

I like this. My student will go crazy over this! Thanks

[SpaceNinja11]

Then the student ended up no so exsited, lol.

[AmilinaR]

This Tutorial is soo diffitcult to figure out, I don't reccommende this one towards begiunners until thye learn to use this tutorial until they have alot of exspereince with the Photo shop Adoble Program

[LaylaLili]

[AlternateLives]

For videos, there are a few methods. the most expensive, but best, way to do it is Adobe AfterEffects. This will allow you to track the points on the lightsaber and create a glow on it. method number two is Motion. this program comes with the Final Cut Studio Suite, and is very similar to AfterEffects, except it does not use Keyframes. Finally, Anime Studio will let you tract the motion on a video clip and allow you to drop a lightsaber effect onto the points.

[dark sith lord9]

i don't really know

[blahblah86]

found layer styles and i'm trying to get into style settings, but it won't let me.  how do i get into it?

[iori57]

 I tried LS maker before and its much more complicated than photoshop itself... and its not flexible.

I manage to create the light saber in 19 seconds using the above technique :) check it out: www.youtube.com/watch

[ttikmai]

the best way to get the saber point is to use the pen tool, it also help when you have a weird angle where the blade width will et larger or smaller in propotrion to other things in the image.

[Galgarith]

Help! I have Photoshop 4.0, and it won't let me choose Outer Glow in the Layers menu. No matter what I try, I can't manually set outer glow around the white line. What do I do? Is 4.0 too old for this tutorial?

[sadben]

yo your really behinde the times get cs4 of torrents, blaze69 in mininova is pretty good.

[albylovesscience]

i got photo shop 5.0

[UberGalacticEmpire]

Can you use the Paint.net program?

[wenpherd]

can you do this with gimp?

[Kilometer]

You can do the same thing with gimp, but instead of using layer styles like in Photoshop, draw another line (the color you want your blade to be) and then Gaussian blur it to the desired length.

[blckthng]

i dont see, why not........ but being the oblivious nut that i am, i've no idea how exactly its supposed to be done.............so sry maite...

[joehadac]

I got photoshop elements 4.0 and it has every thing ur talkin about except i cant choose the outglow color only blue and it dosent really look like urs

[adamthiede]

I got 4.0 for the mac. It's like 400 dollars less than CS 2 or the much-coveted CS 3. It has great FX and is really all i need. ill have to try it out!

[locofocos]

you wouldn't believe how much i didn't pay for photoshop XD

[waffleman]

you wanna hook me up with a website please? I've been looking for one everywhere....if you can message me or just comment me back that would be sweet....