Written by Steve Patterson. In this Photoshop effects tutorial, we'll learn how to easily create and add lightning to an image with Photoshop! There's a few different ways to create lightning using Photoshop. The way we'll learn here is my favorite because, unlike real lightning in nature, this technique gives us lots of control over where the lightning appears and what it looks like in our image. After we've created the initial lightning bolt, we'll learn how to colorize it and how to brighten things up with some highlights to complete the effect!

I'll be using Photoshop CS5 throughout this tutorial but there's nothing we'll be doing that's specific to CS5 so any recent version of Photoshop will work. Here's what the final lightning effect will look like (the original image without the lightning is available from the Fotolia image library):

Let's get started!

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Step 1: Add A New Blank Layer

With the photo newly opened in Photoshop, if we look in the Layers panel, we see that we currently have one layer - the Background layer - which is the layer the photo is sitting on. We're going to add our lightning above this layer so we don't damage the original image. Click on the New Layer icon at the bottom of the Layers panel:

This adds a new blank layer named "Layer 1" above the Background layer:

Step 2: Select The Lasso Tool

Select the Lasso Tool from the Tools panel:

Step 3: Draw A Selection Around The Area Where The Lightning Will Appear

With the Lasso Tool selected, decide where you want the lightning bolt to appear in the image and draw a selection outline around that general area. Here, I've drawn my selection outline in the lower right of the photo:

Step 4: Fill The Selection With White

Go up to the Edit menu in the Menu Bar along the top of the screen and choose Fill:

This opens the Fill dialog box. Set the Use option at the top of the dialog box to White:

Click OK to close out of the Fill dialog box. Photoshop fills the selected area with white in the document:

Step 5: Select The Brush Tool

Select the Brush Tool from the Tools panel:

Step 6: Set The Foreground Color To Black

We need to paint with black, and Photoshop uses the current Foreground color as the paint color, which means we need to make sure our Foreground color is set to black before we start painting. Press the letter D on your keyboard, which resets the Foreground and Background colors to their defaults, making black the Foreground color (white becomes the Background color). You can see what the colors are set to by looking at the Foreground and Background color swatches near the bottom of the Tools panel:

Step 7: Choose A Round, Hard Edge Brush

With the Brush Tool selected, right-click (Win) / Control-click (Mac) anywhere inside the document, which opens the Brush Picker, and choose a round, hard edge brush by clicking on its thumbnail. I'm using Photoshop CS5 here, but don't worry if you're using CS4 or earlier and your selection of brushes looks different from mine. Any round, hard edge brush will do. Once you've selected a brush, press Enter (Win) / Return (Mac) to close out of the Brush Picker:

Step 8: Paint A Jagged Black Stroke Through The White-Filled Selection

Paint a jagged black stroke through the white-filled selection where you want the lightning bolt to appear. The lightning will eventually appear along the right edge of the paint stroke, where the black and white meet. For best results, use a fairly small brush. You can change the size of the brush from the keyboard. Press the left bracket key ( [ ) to make the brush smaller. Pressing the right bracket key ( ] ) makes the brush larger. When you're done, your black stroke should look something like this:

Step 9: Paint The Area To The Left Of The Stroke Black

Once you have your initial black stroke, continue painting over the area to the left of the stroke until it's completely covered in black as well. Only the area to the right of the stroke should remain white. You may want to increase the size of your brush so you can paint over this area more quickly by pressing the right bracket key ( ] ) a few times:

Step 10: Apply The Gaussian Blur Filter

Next, we need to soften the edge where the black and white areas meet, and we can do that by blurring it. Go up to the Filter menu at the top of the screen, choose Blur, then choose Gaussian Blur:

This opens the Gaussian Blur filter's dialog box. Keep an eye on the document as you drag the Radius slider at the bottom of the dialog box towards the right. The further you drag the slider, the more blurring you'll apply and the softer the edge will become. The transition area between black and white created by the soft edge is what will eventually become the lightning bolt, so the softer the edge, the wider the lightning bolt will be. For my image, I'm going to set my Radius value to around 9 pixels. The Radius value you end up using may be different depending on the size of the image you're working with:

Click OK to close out of the dialog box. The edge should now look similar to this:

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Step 11: Apply The Difference Clouds Filter

Go up to the Filter menu, choose Render, then choose Difference Clouds:

There's no dialog box for the Difference Clouds filter, so Photoshop simply goes ahead and runs it. We can see in the document that the soft edge we created a moment ago now begins to look like a lightning bolt, although it's the wrong color at the moment:

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