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Learn how to create beautiful, realistic light leaks in Photoshop.
Download our Light Leak Photoshop Actions here - http://fltrgr.de/fglightleaks
In this tutorial I go through the techniques I use to create a subtle vintage effect on my photo with a nice, authentic light leak over top. This effect can be achieved in Photoshop CS3 or higher, but may look slightly different depending on the version.
Now that you can create light leaks, find out how to use them in your photography with this tutorial on our blog. http://filtergrade.com/use-light-leaks-photography/
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0:03
hey everyone it's Mike here from Filter
0:05
grade and today I want to do a quick
0:07
tutorial on creating light leaks within
0:10
Photoshop a lot of people seem to like
0:12
our light leak effects that we offer on
0:13
our website and I wanted to give you
0:15
guys more in-depth look into how we do
0:17
it and how we make them look more
0:19
realistic so to get started you're going
0:22
to want to open up any image in
0:23
Photoshop that you would like to use and
0:26
um then we're going to go ahead over to
0:27
the adjustment layers and we're going to
0:30
start with a curves this will just add a
0:32
little bit of light and uh tone to the
0:34
image so once you get the curves
0:37
properties open you're going to want to
0:39
bump up the top bar a little bit right
0:41
here just click and add a point and then
0:42
drag it up a little bit and you can see
0:44
it adds some light to the
0:46
base then next you're going to want to
0:49
go down right about to this quadrant and
0:50
add another point and drag it down and
0:53
that adds a little bit of mood like
0:55
Darkness to it and then finally drag
0:58
this very bottom pin up about
1:01
halfway give or take and that adds a
1:03
little bit of like a matte effect to the
1:05
background so um I'll click it on and
1:08
off so you can see it's kind of subtle
1:10
but it adds a nice
1:11
touch so next I'm going to adjust the
1:15
Vibrance a little bit to take a little
1:17
bit of the color away just because it
1:19
helps add a
1:21
slight um faded look to it so do a
1:25
negative 10 on the Vibrance and a
1:26
negative five on the saturation because
1:28
saturation really affects it and it's
1:30
not huge but it just takes a little bit
1:32
of the orange out of the sweater and
1:34
some other colors on the sides and I
1:36
mean that's just optional but I like the
1:38
effect it
1:40
adds all right so now for the actual
1:43
light leak what you're going to want to
1:44
do is you're going to want to start by
1:46
creating a single
1:47
gradient and right now it just looks
1:49
like this but we have to do a little bit
1:51
of adjusting so for the initial gradient
1:54
you're going to want to make it
1:55
completely black so just drag down the
1:58
color slider to Black and then also make
2:01
sure you do this too click this other
2:03
one and drag it to Black so then it will
2:05
be a complete Black and not a fade into
2:07
a slight white so once you do that click
2:10
okay and then you're going to want to
2:11
change it or keep it at linear but
2:13
you're going to want to change it to 0
2:14
deges for the angle and make the scale
2:17
about
2:20
90% next you're going to want to click
2:22
the gradient again and this time you
2:24
want to add a point on the top layer so
2:26
somewhere right about here click and add
2:28
a point and that's %
2:31
opacity now to get this light leak
2:34
looking like a legitimate leak we also
2:35
we have to make it sort of flat right
2:40
here so it doesn't cover the entire
2:42
image so to do that you're going to want
2:45
to change this pin to zero opacity and
2:48
then you can see it's almost all over
2:49
here and there's nothing left over here
2:51
and then you're going to want to add one
2:52
more full pin right
2:54
here maybe another on this side for a
2:56
little bit of depth then what you're
2:58
going to want to do is drag this little
3:00
Diamond close to the other pin right
3:03
here so it's almost a hard straight
3:07
edge but it's got a little bit of um
3:11
little bit of a gradient on the edge and
3:13
then same with this side almost all the
3:14
way so it is completely like a band like
3:17
a band of light over your image and then
3:18
maybe add one more white one right
3:21
here to really cut it off so it looks
3:24
pretty good all right and that should be
3:25
good for the light leak and then you can
3:28
slide wherever you want so if you want
3:30
it on the left side of the image just
3:31
slide over here but I'm going to keep it
3:32
like right about here and that looks
3:34
good for the
3:35
first gradient layer which is the
3:37
initial base of our light leak all right
3:39
so now after that it gets way easier so
3:42
now we create another gradient uh set it
3:44
to 90 degrees or give or take a few
3:47
degrees so I'm going to do 85 so or I'll
3:51
do8 so it has a slight
3:54
angle and then scale this down to 60 and
3:58
then adjust as you need as you see fit
4:00
I'm going to do it right about there and
4:03
um now you're going to want to change
4:04
the color um you can do any color for a
4:07
light L really but um the best colors
4:09
are in the top right corner and I'm
4:11
going to scale it up a little bit to be
4:13
a slight orange red then click okay um
4:18
what I found is the best light leaks are
4:19
often either orange yellow red or um a
4:25
light blue but you could try it with any
4:27
color all right so after you do that
4:30
also click this white one and make it a
4:32
similar orange or maybe a little bit
4:33
lighter tint because it fades into that
4:35
and that way it won't be
4:37
white all right so this looks good um
4:40
I'm going to adjust it a little more to
4:42
75 and then bring it down a little bit
4:44
and then click okay after you do that
4:47
you're going to want to click gradient
4:48
fill one and then you're going to want
4:49
to hit the option or the ALT key on your
4:51
computer and hold it and when you do
4:54
that go in between gradient fill one and
4:56
two and you'll see this little icon and
4:59
then you want to click that what that
5:01
does is it it makes the layer above it
5:03
um tied or clipped to this layer so it
5:07
will all be together so when you affect
5:10
this layer it will also affect this
5:11
layer and now if we slide this it will
5:14
go with it and as you can see it changes
5:17
because of the way I made the gradient
5:19
so I'm going to leave it right about
5:21
there and then the final finishing touch
5:23
to really get that light L effect is to
5:24
go ahead and double click gradient fill
5:26
one and you'll get the layer style to
5:29
come up
5:31
from here you're going to want to go to
5:32
blend mode and click screen now screen
5:35
gives it that faded effect that sort of
5:39
shows through to the picture but also
5:40
adds the light on top and as you can see
5:43
that's basically a really good light
5:44
leak and I think that's what most people
5:47
are going for so now if you want to do a
5:50
little adjusting you can move it around
5:52
I wouldn't suggest lowering the opacity
5:54
because it just makes it look less
5:56
realistic if you want it to be a little
5:58
bit lighter or darker go ahead and
6:02
double click gradient fill two and
6:06
actually click the icon right there and
6:08
then you can change the color and change
6:09
the color so if you want the light leak
6:11
to look a little bit more faded make it
6:13
lighter like this and go in from from
6:16
right to left the closer you get to
6:18
White the better it will look and then
6:20
if you want it to look like really thin
6:22
if you go down to the dark colors it's
6:24
harder to see and then for like a really
6:27
vibrant lightly go all the way in the
6:28
top right and it'll have a it'll pack a
6:30
punch of a color so I'm pretty happy
6:32
with the way this looks now I'm just
6:33
going to add a few more finishing
6:34
touches to the image and then it should
6:37
be good so finally I'm just going to
6:39
adjust the exposure a little bit so this
6:42
will help give a little bit of a pop to
6:43
the light leak I'm going to bring this
6:44
up to a
6:46
0.3 and the offset I'm going to I'm just
6:49
going to take to about a
6:52
negative
6:54
01 and Gamma correction bring to a0 95
7:01
and then that just it doesn't do a lot
7:03
but it adds a slight increase in the uh
7:06
exposure so it helps bring out the light
7:08
leak and that is it so I'm going to
7:10
group this together so you guys can see
7:12
the effect that we made before and
7:15
after so if you group it together and
7:18
then click you can see that we had a
7:20
nice vintage look as well as a light
7:23
leak and um so this effect is pretty
7:26
easy to create as you can see it takes
7:27
about five minutes in Photoshop and you
7:29
can do it with any color any size and
7:32
you can mess around with it and create
7:33
some really cool stuff so um before we
7:36
head out I'm going to show you guys a
7:37
few other effects that are part of our
7:39
premium light leak series um which we
7:42
offer on our website and I'll include a
7:43
link in the description for you to go
7:45
check those out so basically what this
7:47
is it is a pack of 20 Photoshop actions
7:50
and they're all different types of light
7:52
leaks I made that you guys can apply to
7:53
your images so I'm just going to give
7:55
you a quick preview of each set um so
7:57
here's a few basic effects just like a
8:00
hazy look on the
8:01
top and then I created some other simple
8:04
light leaks and you can do these in any
8:07
color they can be red
8:09
orange um I have a few that are really
8:11
vibrant like this like
8:13
purples even green looks kind of cool on
8:16
certain
8:17
images um so these are a few from the
8:20
first set and you can even do like a
8:22
whole wash to factor adds a really nice
8:24
tint to your image and then from the
8:27
next set one of my favorites in the
8:28
whole pack is called angular it adds a
8:30
nice like faded look over the whole
8:32
image and then the shine effect almost
8:34
looks like a
8:37
sunflare and uh finally I'll do I'll
8:39
show you some of the light strip effects
8:40
these are pretty
8:42
cool and this one one of my
8:45
favorites so uh check out the
8:47
description for a link to that and you
8:49
can buy those if you want to save a
8:51
little bit of time they're really easy
8:53
to use they come with some help files
8:54
and if you need any help you can just
8:56
send an email to support filtergrade
8:59
and I'll help you out with anything you
9:01
need so uh that's the end of the
9:03
tutorial I'll show you guys again one
9:04
more time here's a here's the after and
9:06
here's the
9:07
before and uh basically just you know
9:09
have some fun and edit your photos
9:12
thanks for watching