Photoshop Tutorials: Adding Sunlight Through The Trees
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Step 12: Lengthen The Sunbeams With The "Free Transform" Command
We now have two copies of our sunbeams, one on "Layer 2" and the other on "Layer 2 copy". Let's make the sunbeams on "Layer 2 copy" longer to add some variety to them, and we can do that easily using Photoshop's Free Transform command. Before we do that though, if you're currently working with your image inside a document window, press the letter F on your keyboard to switch your screen mode to Full Screen Mode With Menu Bar, which will make it a lot easier to see what you're doing. Then press Ctrl+T (Win) / Command+T (Mac) to bring up the Free Transform box and handles around the image.
If you look closely in the center of the image, you'll see a little target icon. Click on it and drag it up into the same location your sunbeams are zooming out from:
Once you've moved the target icon into its new location, hold down Shift+Alt (Win) / Shift+Option (Mac) and drag any of the corner handles outward to stretch out the sunbeams. By holding down the "Shift" key as we drag, we tell Photoshop to constrain the proportions of the image, and holding down "Alt/Option" tells Photoshop to use the location of that little target icon we moved a moment ago as the center of the transformation, so the beams of light stretch out from that point. Here, I'm dragging out the bottom left handle to make the sunbeams longer:
Press Enter (Win) / Return (Mac) when you're done to accept the transformation.
Step 13: Resize And Reposition "Layer 1" To Create The Ground Reflections
At this point, our beams of light through the trees are complete, but let's finish things off and add a bit more realism by making them appear to be shining on the ground after they pass through the trees. If you remember from earlier in the tutorial, we created a selection from the channel we copied, then added a new layer ("Layer 1") and filled it with white. Up until now, we haven't done anything with that layer, but we're going to use it right now to create the light shining on the ground.
To do that, first click on "Layer 1" in the Layers palette to select it. Then once again press Ctrl+T (Win) / Command+T to bring up the Free Transform box and handles. Click anywhere inside the image (except for on the target icon in the center) and drag the image down until the white-filled areas are appearing over the ground. These white-filled areas are going to become the light shining on the ground. You'll most likely also need to resize them by dragging the top and bottom center handles inward to "squish" them a bit into position:
Press Enter (Win) / Return (Mac) when you're done to accept the transformation.
Step 14: Change The Blend Mode Of "Layer 1" To "Overlay"
Finally, to make the white-filled areas look more like light shining on the ground and less like, well, white-filled areas, simply go up to the blend mode options once again in the top left corner of the Layers palette and change the blend mode for "Layer 1" from "Normal" to Overlay:
And with that, we're done! Here's my original image once again for comparison:
And here, after changing the blend mode of "Layer 1" to "Overlay" to create the light shining on the ground, is my final result:
And there we have it!
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