Photobie Forum

odidio · Joined: 01 Mar 2006 Posts: 89 Location: N.S. Canada

In this one we'll create a large star with a lens flare.

Here is a brush you can use for the star. Copy then save it to your Photobie brushes folder.

Start a new picture whatever size you want and make the background black.
Click on the 'shape brush tool' and choose the star brush.
Turn on the 'auto layer generation'.
Choose white for the primary color ( or any bright color ) and adjust the brush settings. Check the 'random flip' and 'random rotate'. For example, (image below).
Click on your image to start the star.

Change the primary color to something else you would like and lower the size and opacity settings for your brush then click on the center of the first one you made. You can do this a few times and with different colors, if you have the 'auto layer generation' on, you can just delete any mistakes or colored layers you don't like.
You can also lower the opacity for some of the star layers from the layer manager for a better effect.

Now the circles.
Depending on your star you'll want to set the primary and secondary colors close to what you made. For mine I set the colors to bright red and dark red.
Click on the small triangle beside the 'Draw shape tool' to get the drop down menu and choose the 'circle'.
Now this is where there is lots of room to experiment with the size of the circle and the type of gradient.
I mostly stuck to the radial gradient but used different sizes for each.

Drag out your circle(s), go to 'filters' - 'embedded filters' - 'Jitter' and add a small amount of the jitter filter. You don't really have to add the jitter, it's just for effect.
Use the 'hand tool' to resize the circles and place them where you want.
If you notice the black background disappearing when you move the circles don't worry, it will correct itself.
Also lower the opacity quite a bit for each using the slider on the layer manager

(click to enlarge)

If you have the brush we used for the snow in the other tutorial, you can use it to add stars to the pic.

Have fun,

_________________

Cheng · Site Admin Joined: 11 Aug 2005 Posts: 104

Very nice tutorial, I will play with this brush when I extract some time from my current flash editor adventure.

The good news is that I got lots of resource to make it happen. Give me one more month, I will provide you something to play with.