Photoshop Tutorial: How to Create Lightening

Photoshop Tutorial: How to Create Lightening
Intro: Photoshop is a fun way to create your own digital images while adding cool effects to your images. In this tutorial I will show you how to create your own lighting by using filters, gradient tool, levels, and hue/saturation. Sometimes people use brushes to create lightning, but here I will show you how to do it on your own. You will want to make sure you do this on a blank document then add it to the image you want or you can do it on a separate layer.
Step One: Create a new layer (Layer - New Layer) on a black document. Or on the lower right hand of Photoshop, click the icon that looks like a sticky note on the layers pallet.

Step Two: Select the gradient tool. The gradient tool looks like a black box icon. If you can't find it, make sure you look under the paint bucket tool. Also, Make sure you're colors are selected to Black and White.

Step Three: On the new layer, click and drag the gradient tool from the top left of your document to the bottom right. Once you do this, your document should have the colors going from black, to grey, to white.

Step Four: Now, on the same layer, go to (Filter - Render - Difference Clouds). A cloud effect will be added onto your gradient image and you will start to see lighting shapes to form.

Step Five: Next you will want to invert the image. This can easily be done by going (Image - Adjustments - Invert). The dark lightning bolts will now appear to look white and start to look white and realistic.

Step Six: Once you have inverted the image, you'll want to adjust the levels. To do this, press Ctrl + L. This will bring up your levels options. Inside the levels box, make sure you have selected RBG (red, blue, and green). There should be two arrows to the bottom. Slide the black arrow the left and the white/clear arrow to the right. This will make the image clean and you will be able to see the lightning better.

Step Seven: After step six, you're pretty much done with creating lightning, but sometimes adding color looks really cool as well! To do this, press Ctrl + U. This will bring up the Hue/Saturation box. Slide the Hue around until you find the color you like.

And there you go! You have created your very own lightning without using brushes. If you want to create more lightning, all you have to do is repeat steps 1-7 and you should get different types of lightning patterns each time! Just make sure use a new layer each time or you will end up messing up your original lightning bolt.