In article <bhts23$kq0$ says…
can anyone offer any help on adding light rays to a forest scene?
thanks in advance
jeff
Hi there, Jeff!
Sure.. you can do that and it is pretty fun to do, too. Though it seems like lots of steps, stick with it. You can do it!
1. Add a new layer above your forest layer.
2. Use the Polygonal lasso tool (not magnetic) and make a long skinny triangle in the shape of one of the rays you want. Have it start at your "sun."
3. Fill this selection with white. I know it looks horrible. Stick with me.
4. Do this again with your second ray. Fill with white. Continue till you have as many rays as you need.
5. Duplicate this layer. Turn off the eye for the lower one.
6. Reduce opacity on the top layer so it looks remotely like rays.
7. On this ray layer, Filter > Blur > Gaussian blur. Make it blurry enough for the ends at the forest floor to look blurred enough. If you like this.. fine. If you want it to look more realistic, though, you will want to do a little more work.
8. Blur the other ray layer just a bit and reduce its opacity.
9. Click the top ray layer again and put a Layer mask on it by clicking
the Add Layer Mask button at the bottom of the Layers Palette. 10. With black as foreground and white background (type D for Default colors!), choose the Gradient tool, linear gradient option. 11. Drag a gradient from top to bottom over your canvas. This hides the top part of the blurrier ray layer, leaving the more edgy ray layer showing there. This should look pretty good. Muck around with opacity if you need.
Good luck!
Always me, Janee
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