How to create Star Trek's beaming teleportation effect?

[Smasonde29]

I haven't used photoshop in a while and was wondering if anyone knew the best way to get this effect. I'm trying to get a similar effect to this image (different colour light beams), brighter/thicker in the middle and then tapers off.

I'm guessing I need to use Gaussian Blur or something similar.

Any tips on best practices to get this effect or links to any tutorials would be greatly appreciated.

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[Sahil.Chawla]

Hi there,

There are multiple ways to achieve something in Photoshop, however, you ccheck this video and let us know if it helps: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-oblH6AIfo0

Regards,
Sahil

[Smasonde29]

Hi Sahil,

Thanks for the link to the tutorial.

However, I was looking for a way to do it manually, so I can change the colours and positions more freely.

I don't necessarily want to use it to show an object being beamed ( as in what the tutorial shows), but more as a background effect.

If there is a way to do it in Illustrator, that is fine too.

[c.pfaffenbichler]

A combination of multiple groups containing instances of the same SO with Hard Mix-Layers etc. might provide a starting point. 

[War Unicorn]

Wouldn't shock me to learn most if not all this artwork was done by hand. (Maybe using a digital painting/drawning program like Fresco (which didn't exist at the time), ArtRage or Corel Painter.)

[Smasonde29]

Ya, I was thinking I should try Procreate and see what I can do in there. I think it has a few more blur options that I can play around with to get a similar effect to what im looking for.

[davescm]

You could try something like this:

Paint with a splatter brush and add a layer set to colour Blend mode to add color

Then put all three layers in a smart object and use a star filter (this is Star Filter Pro 4) - set to create one pointed stars

Then dot the eyes

Dave

[Smasonde29]

Thanks everyone for your help.

I figured out a way in Illustrator to get what I wanted. Its not exact to what I was looking for, but its pretty close.