Adobe Photoshop Tutorials: Lighting Effects
Learning how to use the
built-in lighting effects filter is one of the
most important skills you'll ever learn for Photoshop.
It allows you to add volume and reality to normal
2D objects. Here we go:
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 Start by opening Photoshop and creating a new image. For
this example, I chose dimensions of 200x200 pixels. Make
a selection. Anything will do, you can use text (like I
did) or make a square or ellipse. After you have a selection,
fill it with a solid color. (If you used text, it should
already be filled).
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 Go to the Layers palette. Rename the layer with your filled
object "Base" by right-clicking it and selecting Layer
Options. Hold down Ctrl and click on the Base layer
to load it as a selection. Switch to the Channels palette
and create a new channel by clicking  .
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 Hit Alt/Backspace to fill your selection with white.
Next go Filter>Blur>Gaussian Blur and choose
a radius of 12 pixels (with a bigger/smaller image you
will need a bigger/smaller radius). Then Gaussian Blur
it again at half the radius you used before (i.e. 6). Now
lets get rid of those jaggies that form on the outside
of the selection. Hit Ctrl/Shift/I to invert your
selection and hit delete.
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 Go back to the Layers palette and click on Base to
select the layer again. Now hold Ctrl and click Base to
load your original selection. Then go to Filter>Render>Lighting
Effects. If an alert pops up asking you to rendering
the layer, click OK. Now the Lighting Effects window will
pop up and give you many options that you can play around
with. First change the Texture Channel to Alpha 1.
Now it's up to you to pick options that suit what effect
you want. If you want to add more lights, click the light
bulb button. By clicking the image to the left, you can
see what options I used.
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 You could stop now if you want, but we can always improve,
right. Lets add a drop shadow to make it look a little
more realistic. Go to the Layers palette and right-click
the Base layer and choose Effects. I used the default
drop shadow and blue outer glow with a blur of 10 pixels.
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 For a more plastic-like look hold Ctrl and click
on Base in the Layers palette to load the selection.
Go to Filter>Artistic>Plastic Wrap. I used
the following settings: Highlight 4, Detail 15, Smoothness
10.
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 This last step will allow you to play with the range of
colors used in your image. Hit Ctrl/M to bring up
the Curves window. Try clicking and dragging the line around
to produce a nice effect. You can click the image to the
left to see what I did. I also added a gray radial gradient
to color in the background on a layer beneath the Base.
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Tutorial
provided by: Spoono.com
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