Similarities in Nature

Similarities in Nature

Here’s something that I actually stumbled upon by accident: I was attempting to take a photo of lightning and create

a brush from it, so I could have lightning when I needed it. However, in my pursuit of this, I had a “Eureka!” moment.

When you look at the lightning image below, what does the shape of the lightning resemble? Read on to find out.

STEP ONE:

Here, we’ll start with this simple stock

image of a lightning strike. It’s always

good to have a folder of images that

contain generic elements like this. You

just never know what you might be

able to use them for.

STEP TWO:

To create the brush, we are going

to start with the image’s channels.

Open the Channels panel by going to

Window>Channels. Toggle through the

individual channels and locate the channel

that defines the lightning pretty well,

while the background is as dark as possible.

In this case, it looks like it will be

the Red channel. So, make a duplicate

of the Red channel by dragging it down

onto the Create New Channel icon.

STEP THREE:

With the Red copy channel active, press

Command-L (PC: Ctrl-L) to open the

Levels dialog. Grab the black (shadows)

eyedropper below the Options button,

and click on the light gray area next to

the lightning bolt. This will force everything

that is that shade of gray or darker

to go black. Then, if necessary, move the

sliders to tighten up the contrast a bit

more (I ended up dragging the center

gray Input Levels midtones slider to the

right a little to 0.75), and click OK.

STEP FOUR:

As we saw before when defining a

brush, Photoshop will disregard the

white area, only defining the black

areas and any little hints of gray there

might be. So, press Command-I (PC:

Ctrl-I) to Invert the image, so the sky

is white and the lightning is black.

Now, go under the Edit menu and

choose Define Brush Preset. Then

just give the brush a name and there

you have a lightning brush.

STEP FIVE:

At this point, we have achieved what

we first set out to do, which was to

create a lightning brush. But, if we

think a little outside the box, we can

use it for more than just lightning. Click

on the brush thumbnail in the Options

Bar to open the Brush Picker, and select

your new lightning brush. Then, click

on the icon to the right of the brush

thumbnail to open up the Brush panel.

Click on Brush Tip Shape on the left

and set the Spacing to 60%. Notice,

also, that the brush size is set to what

it was defined as. But, we’ll use a handy

keyboard shortcut to change the size

later while painting.

STEP SIX:

Next, click on Shape Dynamics on the

left to turn it on. Set the Size Jitter to

100% and make sure the Control pop-up

menu is set to Off. Then set the Angle

Jitter to 100%, as well, and again leave

the Control menu set to Off. Finally turn

on the Flip X Jitter and Flip Y Jitter checkboxes

at the bottom to add variation to

the brush effect.

STEP SEVEN:

Now, open the stone texture file

I supplied on the book’s download site

(mentioned in the book’s introduction),

or open any texture file you want to

try this effect on. Remember when

I said that if you look closely at the

shape of the lightning, you can see

more than the obvious? I look at it

and see a cracked effect. So, click on

the Create a New Layer icon at the

bottom of the Layers panel to create

a new blank layer to paint on.

STEP EIGHT:

Before we paint, click on the Add a

Layer Style icon at the bottom of the

Layers panel and choose Bevel and

Emboss from the pop-up menu. Using

the settings you see here will give the

cracks a little edge depth, making them

a little more realistic. Now, press D to set

your Foreground color to black and paint

on the blank layer with the new brush.

You can see how it gives you the effect

of cracks in the stone just by painting a

few strokes.

STEP NINE:

To finish off the image here, add some

text, using a heavy font (here, I used

Swiss721BT), and change the text layer’s

blend mode to Overlay, so you can see

some of the cracks through it. Then,

Command-click (PC: Ctrl-click) on the

text layer’s thumbnail to select the text,

and press Command-Shift-I (PC: Ctrl-

Shift-I) to Inverse your selection. Now,

click on your cracks layer and switch back

to the Brush tool. Use the Left Bracket

Key ([) to make your brush size smaller,

and paint back and forth around and

over the text to make it look like it’s

so heavy it crumbled the stone when

it dropped onto it. Press Command-D

(PC: Ctrl-D) to Deselect.

Final Image

By changing your Foreground color to white and adding a light blue Outer Glow layer style with

the Blend Mode set to Hard Light, you can actually get a really cool lightning effect, essentially

on a brush. This can give you some electrifying results.