My Rays of Light
Set the Blur Method option on the left of the dialog box to Zoom , then increase the blur Amount to around You may need to try different Amount settings to get the effect looking right with your specific image, but a value of 90 is usually a good place to start:. In the lower right is the Blur Center option where we can set the location in the image where the blur effect will appear to be zooming out from.
Simply click inside the box and, with your mouse button held down, drag the blur center to where you need it.
In my case, I want my light rays to be coming from the setting sun, but the unfortunate problem with the Radial Blur filter is that it doesn't give us any way to preview the effect, which makes setting the blur center a bit of a guessing game. I know that the sun in my photo is towards the left and just above the horizontal center, so I'll click inside the box and drag the blur center into that general area:.
Finally, if you're working on a very large image or on a slow computer or both , set the Quality option in the bottom left of the dialog box to either Draft or Good. The lower quality setting won't give you the nicest looking results but it will allow the filter to run faster so you can judge whether or not you've positioned the blur center correctly or if it needs to be moved.
If you're using a faster computer, go ahead and set the Quality option to Best , which is what I'll do:. Click OK to close out of the dialog box, at which point Photoshop runs the filter. As luck would have it, I seem to have positioned my blur center in the correct spot on the first try which doesn't happen very often , and we can see the rays of light now streaming out from the sun:. Don't worry if you didn't get things right on the first try.
It's easy to go back and try again. You'll see the Radial Blur filter listed at the very top since it was the last filter we used:.
How To Add Rays Of Sunlight
This will re-open the Radial Blur dialog box. Drag the blur center to a new position or change the Amount value if needed, then click OK to have Photoshop run the filter again. For this effect, we want it to be zooming out from wherever the sun is sitting in the sky. Simply click inside the box and, with your mouse button held down, drag the blur center to where you need it. Unfortunately, Photoshop doesn't make this very easy. There's no preview option, and it doesn't help that the box is square when your photo is most likely rectangular.
Knowing exactly where to set the center point is really a trial-and-error, "take your best guess" type of thing. It's frustrating, but again, we'll be able to easily come back, move the blur center and try again, so don't worry about getting it perfect. Since the sun is roughly in the center-right of my photo, I'll drag my blur center to the center-right of the box:. When you're ready, click OK to close out of the dialog box and apply the Radial Blur effect, transforming the clouds into rays of light.
In my case, I like the strength of the effect so setting the Amount value to was a good choice, but the zoom isn't centered correctly. The light rays should be coming from the sun, but instead, they're a bit too far to the left:. Fortunately, because we applied the Radial Blur filter to a Smart Object rather than a normal layer, it was applied not as a normal filter but as a Smart Filter , which makes it easy to go back and make whatever changes we need.
If we look in the Layers panel, we see the Radial Blur filter listed as a Smart Filter directly under the "sun rays" layer. To re-open its dialog box, just double-click on it:. When the dialog box re-opens, go ahead and make any changes you need. You can do this as many times as you like because Smart Filters in Photoshop are non-destructive so you never need to worry about losing image quality.
In my case, I'll leave the Amount value set to but you may want to try a different value with your image. The only change I'll make is that I'll click and drag the blur center over a bit to the right to hopefully line it up this time with the sun. Click OK when you're ready to close out of the dialog box and apply the filter with your new settings:.
If the effect still doesn't look right after the second try, don't feel bad.
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Blame Adobe for not making it easier that's what I do , then just double-click on the Radial Blur Smart Filter in the Layers panel to re-open its dialog box, make your changes, and then click OK to try again. Repeat as many times as needed. Once you have your blur center lined up properly in the image, re-open the Radial Blur dialog box and change the Quality from Good to Best , then click OK to run the filter one last time:. It will take quite a bit longer than before a progress bar will let you know how it's going , but when it's done, you'll have rendered the light rays at the highest possible quality:.
ray of light
We have our light rays, but they're covering the entire image. That may be what you want depending on your photo, but in my case, it's a problem. For starters, the rays are shining right through the couple on the beach.
I also want the rays to appear only above the horizon, not below it. To hide the light rays in the areas we don't need them, we'll use a layer mask.
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With the "sun rays" layer still selected, click on the Layer Mask icon at the bottom of the Layers panel:. Nothing will happen to the image yet, but a white-filled layer mask thumbnail appears on the "sun rays" layer:. Click on Photoshop's Brush Tool in the Tools panel along the left of the screen to select it:. We're going to use the Brush Tool to paint over the areas where we want to hide the light rays.
To do that, we'll need to be painting with black. Photoshop uses the Foreground color as the brush color, so to quickly make sure it's set to black, first press the letter D on your keyboard. This will set the Foreground color to white , which is the default color whenever a layer mask is selected. Then, press the letter X on your keyboard to swap the Foreground and Background colors, making the Foreground color black.
Again, you can see the current Foreground and Background colors in the color swatches near the bottom of the Tools panel. The Foreground upper left swatch should now be filled with black:. I tried my best, to capture the light ray, against the contrasting darkness in the room, but I failed. I have tried to take such a picture outside too, in woods, where light rays were coming in through think growth of trees, but the capture was not at all what I have seen in pictures of similar situations.
Here is a picture I randomly picked from Flickr to clarify what I was trying to capture.
This question has been asked before and already has an answer. If those answers do not fully address your question, please ask a new question. Well, first of all it's not possible at all to photograph the ray of light itself. You can only photograph the effect that the ray has on other things. To catch how the ray shines through the air, you need something in the air to reflect the ray, like dust or mist.
Once the effect of the ray is visible in the air, you can easily photograph it.