Things You'll Need:
- Adobe Photoshop CS4
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Step 1
Launch Adobe Photoshop CS4 and create a new file. I selected "web" in the preset box to give me enough room to work with. The size is irrelevant so you can make it whatever you want. I will say though, the larger the size, the cooler the lightning.
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Step 2
Unlock your background layer by double clicking on it, and when the layer window appears, give it a name and then click ok. For this tutorial I have named my layer "lightning effect".
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Step 3
Reset your color pallette so that black is back on top. To do that just press the letter "D".
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Step 4
From the main menu at the top select "Filter", then select "Render", then select "Clouds" as shown in the picture associated with this step.
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Step 5
Your layer should now be a "cloudy" appearance in just black and white. We need to get rid of a lot of the white area, so in order to do that we add another filter called "Difference Clouds". From the main menu at the top select "Filter", then select "Render", then select "Difference Clouds" as shown in the picture associated with this step.
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Step 6
Now we need to invert our layer. This will turn our dark lines into lighter lines and that is what we are shooting for to get close to the lightning effect. To invert your layer, press the "CTRL+I" keys on your keyboard at the same time, or you can click on "Image" on the main menu at the top, then click on "Adjustments" and then finally "Invert" as shown in the picture associated with this step.
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Step 7
As you can see it is starting to "kind of" look like lightning. We need to fine tune it. In order to do that we adjust the levels. To bring up the levels window press the "CTRL+L" keys on your keyboard at the sametime or click on "Image" then "adjustments" then level.
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Step 8
When the levels window appears, click on the gray middle slider and slide it towards the white slider. You should see your layer start to reduce to streams of lightning.
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Step 9
Now all we need to do is give our lightning some color. Bring up the "Hue/Saturation" adjusment window. To do that you click on "Image", then click on "Adjustments" then click on "Hue/Saturation" or press the "CTRL+U" keys on your keyboard at the sametime.
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Step 10
On the "Hue/Saturation" window, check the "Colorize" checkbox located in the lower right side of the window. Then slide the "Hue" and "Saturation" levels until you get the desired effect you want. I set my "Hue" to 230 and my "Saturation" to 51.
