Dave Buckley - Light Saber Effect in Photoshop

I was recently asked if I ever tried a light saber effect in Photoshop. I have - I think every Starwars fan has tried it at least once, so here's how I did it.

Let's take a photo of a rehearsal saber fight with QuiGon Gin and Darth Maul. It has good definition and great reference for the location of the blades.

this tutorial is going to use layers, layer effects and a simple line tool to achieve the effect.

I am going to use two techniques to give you an idea that nothing is set in stone, and that you should experiment for the effect or style that suits you.

I will ust a straight line for Maul's saber, and two tapering lines for GuiGon.

Start by selecting the line Tool in the Tool Pallete, and set the foreground colour to WHITE.

Set the line weight to 6 or 7 pixels so you end up with a nice thick line along the portion of the light saber fromt he hilt to the tip.

You should have a thick white liine along the end of the saber. Don't panic that it looks a little rough and has a gray outline at this stage - it clear itself.

If you check the Layers Panel, you will see that Photoshop has created a new layer, in this case called Shape 1referencingthe line "Shape" you just drew.

Now to work the magic! From the toolbar at the top of the page, select Layer/Layer Effect/ Outer Glow

A default setting will come up with a yellow glow. change the colour to RED. I used a setting of 75% opacity with a glow size of 15 pixels and a spread of 11%. This gave a rather good looking "glow" to the saber.

Return to the line tool and draw in the other end of Maul's saber - the glow effect is already attached to the line.

Where your graphics software does not add the glow for you , repeat the step for each new layer.

You can now go to QiGon's saber and add the line tool from the hilt tothe tip. the glow is still red, so go into the layer/layer effect/outer glow menu on the toolbar, or click the Layer Effect icon on the Layers Panel, and change the glow colour to GREEN.

Human eyes are much more sensitive to the colour green, and QuiGon's saber will appear much more vibrant for the same settings - this is natural.

If you want to upthe settings on Darth Maul's saber, go back through the layers and play with the settings.

Your photo should be starting to look pretty cool at this stage.

Experimentation is the key to success in this game, I actually went back through the layers and gave each saer blad a gaussian blur (radius 1.4 pixels) to soften the ends of the blade - it worked rather well - but you can leave the sabers as is.

Try adding a new layer, and using the lasso tool and the paint bucket tool, create a triangular shape over the blade to simulate the motion blur you get in a frame of a moving image.

The effect is quite dramatic!

That is all for this tutorial. I hope this helps get you started with your own digital effects. The tutorial is brief, in that I assume a basic knowledge or understanding of the tools used, as graphics software varies greatly in the application of tools - even between versions in Photoshop itelf.

Let me know how you go with your own saber effects, and I'll post your work up at the end of this tutorial in a mini-gallery!

Regards,

Dave Buckley
(Ramjet)