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Adding Muzzle Flashes & More

Adding Muzzle Flashes & More

STEP 5

Needs dust! Specifically, the dust kicked up from the wall by the weapon firing.

Using the Eyedropper tool, select a nice dusty colour from the pic. I used a tan shade from the “street”.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

With the dusty hue as your foreground palette colour, and black as your background palette colour, you can create a new layer. Name it “DUST” to keep things simple.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

With the new blank layer active, go to Filter>Render>Clouds. This will create a random cloudy pattern using the two selected colours in your palette – tan and black, in this case.

If you’re not happy with the pattern you can always generate a new one.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Keeping the DUST layer active, change the Blending Mode to “Screen” like you did with the muzzle flash. This will turn the black invisible.

You can also tweak the brightness and contrast, but do so sparingly. Too much contrast will turn your cloud effect into an explodey wall of flame (try it and see – it’s pretty cool and useful).

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

When you’re done tweaking the dust cloud, you can erase the parts of it you don’t need.

Select the Eraser from the Tools pane, then choose a large soft brush from the drop-down menu. I like the 200-pixel brush because it gives nice feathered edges.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I erased most of the cloud effect here, keeping only the area above the wall untouched.

You can also adjust the transparency of the cloud by selecting the Opacity slider on the Layers pane at lower right.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Now you’re done!

Photoshop also lets you optimize pics for uploading. Go to File>Save For Web, adjust the quality, then save the optimized pic to your HD.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I hope you find this useful. Knowing these basic techniques will help you add that extra “oomph” to your action shots, and will open up a world of possibilities.

Thank you, for sharing these tips with us, Fled74!

As always, you can join the discussion here!

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About Ian Walker

Just a stay at home dad, part time internet troll, and amateur photographer, with delusions of grandeur and a love for 1:18th scale toys.

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