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Participant
August 24, 2022
Question

Starburst

  • August 24, 2022
  • 1 reply
  • 1036 views

How to create starburst effect on light sources at night, or on the sun peeping out through a corner?

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1 reply

Rob_Cullen
Community Expert
Community Expert
August 24, 2022

In Lightroom, about all you can do is a Brush to brighten the sun, or draw your own star-streaks with the Brush and increase Exposure of the brushed areas*.

The "sun peeping out" effect is achieved in the camera by using a very small aperture (f16 f22 etc) and only placing the sun part way behind a foreground 'edge' (tree, building, etc). It is the aperture blades in the lens that create the star-streaks.

Photoshop is sure to have a Star-burst filter- but that's another story.

 

*A technique with the Lr Brush is to- 1) Click with a Large Brush, 2) reduce the Brush size very small, 3) Hold [SHIFT] and Click the brush again in another spot. The effect is this-

 

Regards. My System: Windows-11, Lightroom-Classic 15.1.1, Photoshop 27.3.1, ACR 18.1.1, Lightroom 9.0, Lr-iOS 10.4.0, Bridge 16.0.2 .