Graphics Programs Reference
In-Depth Information
Creating Dramatic Lighting
The Lighting Effects filter has been in Photoshop for as long as I can remember, which lets
you know how long it has needed a serious makeover. Luckily, for us, it recently got one
and it's better than ever. It's basically a filter that creates lighting right where you want it,
with different styles of lighting, and to be able to do that, it has to darken the rest of your
photo first, and then it lights the one (or more) areas you choose. The interface also uses
some of the new onscreen interactivity that Adobe has been working with, so besides just
being better, now it's just plain fun to use.
Step One:
Open the image you want to add dramatic lighting to. In the image shown here, the lighting
on our subject is pretty decent, but there's so much ambient (existing) light in the room
that it's not very dramatic (I shot this with all natural light, and a bunch of it is bouncing
up onto her gown from the gray-and-white marble floor). I always start by duplicating the
Background layer (you'll see why in just a few steps), so press
Command-J (PC: Ctrl-J)
.
