Photoshop CS5 – Add Dramatic Lighting Effect
To quickly add a dramatic lighting effect to an image, you can use Render->Lighting Effects tool under Filter
Original Image:
Open your original file.
1. First, duplicate your background layer into a new layer by dragging your background layer to “create a new layer” icon under layers tab.
2. Go to “Filter” Menu –> “Render” –> “Lighting Effects…” You’ll find a dialog similar to this one. Select the round “Soft Omni” lighting style in “Style”, then adjust your properties to create an effect looks similar to the preview below. Once finished, click “OK”
3. With default “Normal” layer rendering method, you’ll get some really darkened images, thus, we need to change the layer rendering effects from “Normal” to “Soft Light” to blend our new lighting effect into image nicely, then, adjust duplicated layer’s opacity to your liking. You can see in the dialog below, after I created the first background copy layer and tweaked opacity, I then duplicated the first copy layer, this way, so I can fine tune the image further by adjusting opacity (This third layer is optional.)
4.The final image will look like below. Notice the much more dramatized lighting effect compare to the original photograph’s flat apparence.
Edited Image:
