Production Reflection

ProcessI am going to be adding a bolt of lightning to this image that branches off into smaller lightning bolts, causing the sky and clouds around it to be illuminated with a bright, purple glow.

I found the photo I’m going to be working with on Google Images by entering “countryside field” into the Search bar.

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First I added a guideline to the canvas and placed it in the middle of the road, then I cropped the image with the Crop tool so that the middle of the road would be in the centre of the image.

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I selected the Gradient Tool and dragged my cursor from the upper left corner to the bottom right corner.

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I went to Filter > Render > Difference Clouds, and then I inverted the image by going to Image > Adjustments > Invert.

You can already see parts of the image that look like lightning bolts.

Process I went to Image > Adjustments > Levels and configured the settings as seen below. Doing this will make the ‘lightning’ in the image stand out more.

The screenshot on the right shows that there are many blemishes on the image. To remove these blemishes, I went over them using the Eraser tool with the Hardness set at 0%, while at the same time making sure not to accidentally erase any parts I might need.

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Some of the lightning bolts are joined together at both ends, and can’t be used in this state. In order to separate them, I used the Polygonal Lasso Tool to select half of the lightning, and then in the Refine Edge window, I set Feather to 7.6px and Smooth to 100. Doing this causes the selection to fade around the edges. After pressing OK, I split the joined lightning into two by dragging the selection away with the Move Tool.

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After removing all the blemishes and splitting the lighting bolts that were joined together, I changed the Blending Mode of the layer to Screen. Doing this removes the black part of an image while keeping the white part.

Now that the lightning bolts have been made, I will have to make some adjustments to the sky before adding them into the image.

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I made a new Levels Adjustment Layer with the settings as shown below. This results in the image having a very high brightness and contrast.

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I only want the effects of the Levels Adjustment Layer to be present on the right side of the image, so I used the Marquee Tool to select half of the canvas (this is where the guideline comes in handy), and with the Paintbucket Tool, I filled the selection with black. Then I used a black brush with a low Opacity and Flow to partially mask off the effect on some areas in the sky and in the field of grass.

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Now I am going to make the main lightning bolt that will be placed on the border between the dark and the light area of the image.

In a new layer, I grabbed a black brush with 100% hardness and I drew a rough line in the centre with my mouse. Then I filled the entire left side with black, and the right side with white using the Paintbucket Tool

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After this, I went to Filter > Blur > Gaussian Blur, and in the Gaussian Blur window, I entered 18px for the Radius.

Following this, I went to Filter > Render > Difference Clouds to the lightning bolt visible.

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I went to Image > Adjustments > Invert to change the line in the centre from black to white, and then I altered the Levels to remove the clouds in the background. Next, I used the Eraser Tool with the hardness set to 0% to remove the blemishes from the image.

After removing the blemishes:

ProcessChanging the Blending Mode of the main lightning bolt to Screen removes all traces of black from the image while keeping the all the white parts.

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I used the Eraser tool to remove the bottom part of the lightning bolt so that it would appear to strike behind the hills.

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I added a new layer on top of the Levels Adjustment Layer, and used a white brush to add emphasize the brightness in the area near the lightning bolt.

On the Levels Adjustment Layer that provides the main brightness, I have used a black brush to mask off its effects in order to make more of the sky visible.

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Process From this slide onwards, I will focus on incorporating colour into the clouds, the sky, and the grass.

I added a new Gradient Adjustment Layer, and with a black brush I went over the areas that I didn’t want to be affected by its effects. The purpose of this layer is to add purple to the clouds. Below I have included screenshots of the Adjustment Layer that show which part of the image is affected by its effects (white), and which part isn’t (black).

The Blending Mode of this Adjustment Layer is set to ‘Vivid Light’, and has an Opacity of 38%.

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I added a new Gradient Adjustment Layer, and with a black brush I went over the areas that I didn’t want to be affected by its effects. The purpose of this layer is to add a subtle pink hue to the clouds and to the central lightning bolt. Below I have included screenshots of the Adjustment Layer that show which part of the image is affected by its effects (white), and which part isn’t (black).

The Blending Mode of this Adjustment Layer is set to ‘Color’, and has an Opacity of 70%.

I added a new Solid Colour Adjustment Layer, and with a black brush I went over the areas that I didn’t want to be affected by its effects. The purpose of this layer is to add a subtle purple hue to the field of grass on the right side of the image. Below I have included screenshots of the Adjustment Layer that show which part of the image is affected by its effects (white), and which part isn’t (black).

The Blending Mode of this Adjustment Layer is set to ‘Hue’, and has an Opacity of 30%.

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I added a new Gradient Adjustment Layer, and with a black brush I went over the areas that I didn’t want to be affected by its effects. The purpose of this layer is to add a purple hue to the clouds. Below I have included screenshots of the Adjustment Layer that show which part of the image is affected by its effects (white), and which part isn’t (black).

The Blending Mode of this Adjustment Layer is set to ‘Color’, and has an Opacity of 70%.

I have added an Exposure Adjustment Layer to my document, and with a black brush I went over the areas that I didn’t want to be affected by its effects.

In the Exposure settings, I dragged the Offset slider all the way to the left. Doing this darkens the shadow and midtone values, but leaves the highlights alone.Below I have included screenshots of the Adjustment Layer that show which part of the image is affected by its effects (white), and which part isn’t (black).

The Blending Mode of this Adjustment Layer is set to ‘Normal’, and has an Opacity of 100%.

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ProcessI added a new Solid Colour Adjustment Layer, and with a black brush I went over the areas that I didn’t want to be affected by its effects. The purpose of this layer is to make the hills in the distance have a purple tone to them. Below I have included screenshots of the Adjustment Layer that show which part of the image is affected by its effects (white), and which part isn’t (black).

The Blending Mode of this Adjustment Layer is set to ‘Color’, and has an Opacity of 40%.

ProcessI added a new layer, and with a purple brush I went over the areas that were still lacking in colour. Within the Layer Mask, I used a black brush to go over the areas that I didn’t want to be affected by its effects.

Below I have included screenshots of the Layer Mask that show which part of the image is affected by its effects (black), and which part isn’t (white).

The Blending Mode of this Adjustment Layer is set to ‘Color’, and has an Opacity of 48%.

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I think that the main lightning bolt needs to be more distinguished from the rest of the image. In order to do this, I need to make a few adjustments to it.

I duplicated the layer containing the main lightning bolt using the keyboard shortcut CTRL + J, and then I set its Blending Mode to Color Dodge.

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With the duplicated layer selected, I selected Image > Adjustments > ColorBalance, and in the Color Balance window I changed the settings as can be seen in the screenshots to the left.

The first screenshot applies to the Midtonesof the lightning bolt, and the second one applies to its Shadows.

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Now I am going to work with the set of smaller lightning bolts I made earlier.

For what I am going to do, I need each individual lightning bolt to have its own layer. I did this by selecting one at a time with the Polygonal Lasso Tool, and selecting Layer Via Cut in the context menu.

After this was done, I organised all 14 lightning bolts inside a group for convenience.

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Now that each lightning bolt has its own layer, I made them the appropriate size by selecting the group containing them, and pressing CTRL + T on my keyboard, which is a shortcut for the Free Transform feature.

Following this, I selected individual lightning bolts and placed them in such a way that they branch off each other, like real lightning does. I did this by rotating them and shrinking/expanding their sizes through the use of the Free Transform feature.

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This is the finished product: