how do I create this effect?

[fablerin]

hello, 

I found this photo online and wondered how the creator created the cool light effect, has anyone an idea how he did that so I can try it out on my photos? Any help would be very nice 🙂 thx

[Trevor.Dennis · Accepted solution]

There several ways to achieve this, but Path Blur is my current favourite method.

First you need to make a copy of the layer with whatever you want to blur

Select the original layer and go Filter > Blur gallery > Path blur

Make sure Centered blur is turned off and place and drag the blue arrow to give the blur direction.

Adjust Speed to give the required amount of blur

Check Edit blur shapes which will bring up the Red arrows (Not the RAF display team — you don't want them buzzing around your computer).  Adjust the direction and shape of the red arrow to suite.

Use as man arrow as you need to get the effect you want.

OK it and turn the original layer on

Copy the blur layer if you want it to be more pronounced, like this

[fablerin]

thank you so much 🙂 

[Trevor.Dennis]

Just a reminder that you can drag out multiple paths (blue arrow) in the same operation.  Make the layer you are adding the path blur to a Smart Object, so you can go back in and edit the path.

[mglush]

Hi!

Along with Trevor's great suggestion above, I wanted to give you another option. If you use the Blend Tool in Illustrator, this is the effect you can create:

The steps would be:

1. Create 2 shapes, one for the beginning of the Blend and one for the end, and choose two different colors. In this case I created a star in white and a star in Navy Blue. I also selected the Navy blue star and copied to create the lighter blue star that sits on top.

2. Select the blend tool and click on one of the Anchor points of the first star, then click on an anchor point of the second star. Illustrator automatically creates the blend. Then choose paste in front and if will paste the Star that you copied and you can change the color of that shape without changing the blend.

The two star blends at the top were created by selecting the same anchor point on each star. The bottom on was created by selecting different anchor points.

I hope this gives you a fun alternative to play with to get the effect you want.

Michelle