Quick texture tips in Photoshop: Lasers

Ivan Khomenko shares some of the best techniques for creating laser textures
in Photoshop.

You can download the brushes used in the following tip here.

Step 1: Lasers I

Now I'll describe my way of creating a laser effect in Photoshop Extended.

After you load Photoshop you should create a new file which should be about 2000x1400 pixels. To make the lasers look more dramatic, I think we need to put them on a dark background - this way the effect from the Color Dodge layer will be more noticeable (I'll explain about the Color Dodge layer a little later on). So by using the Paint Bucket Tool (‘G' on your keyboard), you should fill the whole image with a black color.

Filling the scene with a black layer to make the laser stand out

Filling the scene with a black layer to make the laser stand out

Step 2: Lasers II

The next thing you need to do is to load the brush set attached to this tutorial.

Go to Windows > Brush Preset, then down at the bottom click on Brush Preset Manager and click Load. After that you should find the file containing the brushes and click done. When this is done, you'll find a lot of different brushes in the Brush Preset panel, but you can ignore them for the most part because we'll only be using couple of them. I've never actually used half of them, but it's very interesting to try some of them out in different situations. For example, if you need to create an interesting rock texture you could try out different combinations of brushes.

Loading the brushes into your Brush Preset panel

Loading the brushes into your Brush Preset panel

Step 3: Lasers III

So after you load the brushes you'll need to choose the second one from the top. Create a new layer by clicking on the Create New Layer button, and then draw three white crooked lines on this new layer.

The basic outline of the laser effect

The basic outline of the laser effect

Step 4: Lasers IV

Then you need to create one more layer and change the blending mode to Color Dodge. You can then choose any color you want for your laser, (it should be bright color though). I choose bright blue.

Selecting the laser texture using a Color Dodge blending mode

Selecting the laser texture using a Color Dodge blending mode

Step 5: Lasers V

Finally, you just need to paint your laser beams with a simple air brush on top of the white lines. So now with this very simple step, you have created blue lasers.

The final laser effect

The final laser effect

Related links:

Check out Ivan Khomenko's Artstation
Get our Beginner's Guide to Digital Painting in Photoshop book

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