Lighting Effects

Oh, how I miss using light in a lot of my work.  I used to do it a lot back in the old days, so I want to try it again.  I tried out some sample pieces first based off a tutorial I quite enjoyed a while back and from there I began adding items to it, making it my own.

It started off like this:

(Yes, I like the word Fantabulous, despite it being made up)

Then I wanted to create a fantastical night scene out of it because that blue was just gorgeous.

I borrowed a set of cloud brushes from Brusheezy and a moon from Google and combined it with a photo I had taken in Japan a few years back.  Having a weak spot for soft light, I cropped out part of the ocean from my Japan photo first and changed the mode to soft light so it melded with the blue background, immediately creating a night scene.  Afterwards, I split the moon in half and created a reflection in the water with it and then threw some clouds into the scene.  Because the clouds were so gray, I applied an outer glow to it.  Finally I created some speckles for stars and  threw them in the background, and here is the final result!

Developed in: Adobe Photoshop

Amazing

I think this is the first time I realized how fun and amazing colour dodge is.  Without that effect, I wouldn't have completed this little tag.  I wanted to learn how to make things more flashy in Photoshop.  Well, I know of some techniques but it never hurts to learn more.  This could also help with my skills in typography one day.  The background is actually a shrunken version of some tissue paper I scanned a while ago.  

I used a masking effect on the letters and erased using a brush tool at 40% opacity, which would leave some solid parts of the letters behind.  I then added some colour in the background (on another layer).  The letters sit on top of it which gives it that nice colourful effect.  I added some brush work using some "colour" effects in the end.  Hopefully I can continue to make some of these awesome little pieces in the future!

The font used is: Gill Sans Ultra Bold

Developed in: Adobe Photoshop CS3