Adobe Photoshop has everything you need to manipulate photos. And yes, you can make an object look glow like the moon or lightsaber.
Turns out, to make such effect is not hard and can be done within 3 minutes of work. You don’t need to install a third-party plugin. All you need was already inside the program.
So, here is the guide!
The following guide is based on Adobe Photoshop CS4. However, the step by step guide should be the same for other versions.
How to make object glows in Photoshop
Time Needed : 3 minutes
In the following guide, you will learn how to make any object in Photoshop glows with a soft light. The result will somewhat look like the moon, glowing stick, or lightsaber. It best if you already understand working with some Photoshop tools, especially for selecting an object.
Open the image you want to edit with Photoshop.
Make sure you already separated the object you want to glow from the rest of the image. For example, I have a moon photo with a black sky background.
On the layer you want to make its object glows, right-click on it and select Blending Options…
Check on Outer Glow.
Play around with the Opacity, Color, and Size as highlighted with yellow. Then, click OK.
(You can play with other parameters, but the three aforementioned before are the most common)
Now, you got the result.
Tools
- Adobe Photoshop
Materials
- Image
The glow effect works best if you match the glowing color with the source of light. You may also have to play with Size and Opacity to depict the intensity of light.
In general, this method might not be resulting in a good quality photo. That’s why it’s recommended to master some Photoshop features to make the output file looks as expected. Brush, for example, is one of the most used tools in Photoshop. You can learn how to create a brush in Photoshop for beginners.
I hope this guide helps you. Happy editing!
