Tips and Tricks: Light Motion Trails and

A little glow can actually add a lot of dimension and movement to a design so went on a hunt for the best tutorials on creating light trails and glowing specs. I will take you through the steps but if you would like to see step-by-step pictures, my favorite version came from: http://veerle-v2.duoh.com/blog/comments/creating_light_motion_trails_glowing_spark/. To begin, open a Photoshop document and for best results, add a dark background. Then create a weighted, curved line in Photoshop using the pen tool. Double click the shape layer to pull up the layer styles panel. Check the outer glow option an experiment with different colors, transparencies and blending options. For a multiplied effect, duplicate this line several times, changing the color, weight and shape. Now you are ready to add in your trail of light specs. First, choose the default soft round 21 px brush and open the brushes palette. Change your settings to the following: roundness- 100%, harness- 0%, spacing 222%, check the shape dynamics box to the left and adjust the jitter size to 100%, check the scattering box to the left and check both axes, adjusting the scatter to 77%. Lastly, make sure the paint brush is selected, choose a light color that that would match your glowing lines and would best resemble a glowing effect and draw a line in the direction that you’d like the light trail to follow. There you have it, an easy approach to a psychedelic Photoshop effect. Let us know if you have other ways to create this effect!

Written by: Karly Poole