September 2009 Newsletter (Burst Light Brush)

Hello Raw Shooters

Summer is almost over and fall is coming, with opportunities to photograph the amazing autumn colors. Outdoor photography in fall is quite challenging due to rapid changes in ambient light. So be prepared by using fill flash or light reflectors to add a little more creativity to your images.

Now on to this month tip:

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How do I avoid the distracting effects of light fixtures in indoor photography?

When taking pictures indoors, there often are distracting areas created by light fixtures.  This picture is an example: although it is a well- exposed photo and the composition is great, the track lights disrupt the feel of this cozy Italian Coffee shop.

How would you fix this?  Clone tool?  No.  We all want to save time in our post processing, and those lights are part of our image. Burning?  Not recommended.
It will improve it a little, but not a lot. 

Let’s use those distracting lights to add a more romantic effect to our images.

This tutorial will guide through the steps to create a Light  Burst  Brush in Photoshop and use it to add a pleasing effect to some of your indoor shots.

1. Go to File>New and then select Photo in preset. For size select Portrait, 2x3 and for Background Contents select Transparent. 

2. Select Brush tool and open Brush preset picker. Then scroll down till you find the Crosshatch 4 brush.

3. Change the size of brush to 400 and click and make the first mark.

4. Go to Toggle the Brushes panel and open the panel.

5. Change the Angle of the brush to about -45 and make the second mark. Now change the angle to -115 and the size of brush to 250 and make the third mark, again change the angle to 115 and make the fourth mark.

6. Now close Toggle the brushes panel and go to Edit>Define brush preset and select a name for your new brush and click OK. I selected LightBurst1 for myself since I may create different ones later.


7. Close the open document. You don’t need to save this image.


8. Open the photo that you want to edit in Photoshop and create a new layer in the layers panel.

9. Select the brush tool and set the foreground color to white. Search for your created brush and select it. (Usually it is the last brush in Brush preset picker.)

10. Adjust the size of brush according to the light sources and brush the effect on the lights. Then adjust the Opacity if needed.    

And that’s how easy it is to modify distracting light sources and keep the image more romantic. 

Have a good month of September.  See you again in October with more tips in photography.

Ted and Omnilargess Team

 

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