CRAZE BEAM

Step 1 - Craze Beam Tutorial

Hi there glad to see you here!



I've recently started to use Adobe Photoshop for graphics design and I needed to
create a nice light/energy beam effect for one of my designs.



Ok well open up Photoshop and create a new project called beam

with these settings.

 



Ok now unlock the background layer by double clicking on it.

Give it a name of "bgcolor" then click ok. Now fill the background with black
using the Paint Bucket tool. ('G' is the shortcut).



I always like to use black as the background colour because of the way that it
enhances colours giving them a stronger contrast and brightness. The main colour
theme of this project will be purple. (You gotta love purple)



By the way excuse my spelling of "color" as you American's call it. I'm from
Australia. We speak English here.



Now to create the beam. To do so we will make a new layer, this way if you stuff
up its easy to delete it without ruining our nice black screen.



Ok now make a new layer (Ctrl+Shift+N), and click on the paintbrush tool. ('B')

Find the panel that says 'Brushes' found by default in the top right corner, and
go to brush presets.

 

Scroll down and select the "Soft Round
200px" airbrush.

Ok we're doing well now. The airbrush works very much like... an airbrush.
(Sorry lame joke)

The more you apply in one area, the thicker it becomes towards the edges.



Feel free to practice around before the next step, but make a new layer to do
this on, so when you are done you can just delete it.




MAKING THE BEAM:



Ok. Step 2 - Making the beam.

Now find the colour swatched window and select something like "Dark Violet"

Draw a stripe up the center of the page to make the bottom colour.



Next make a new layer, choose the same brush with the brush tool, and select a
lighter colour like "Light Violet". Select the brushes window and under "Brush
Tip Shape", change the diameter to 150px and draw another stripe down the center
of the other one. Make sure u are on the new layer.



Now you should have something like this

Lastly repeat the above step with white as your colour, and brush diameter set
to 65px, and you should end up with a basic beam shape.

Finally to spice it up a bit. Merge all the layers and select the smudge tool.
Then using a spatter brush with 57px, smudge out and up from the center of your
beam. Finally select the brush tool, a white colour, and any airbrush preset.
Make the brush tip diameter 6px and select the scattering option. Make the
parameters the same as these and start drawing some white dots near the beam.

Your finished product should look something similar to the beam below. I know
its not proffesional or anything but it ads a nice touch to special effects
animation when used well.

 

Thanks,


Ron