[Kaix]

Hi everybody. I'll be trying to explain how to make a lightning bolt and animate it out of scratch, only using basic photoshop filters and animation techniques. I tried making the explanations as clear as possible, but there might be places where they are a bit... bad. So if something seems unclear or anything, just ask!

Hopefully, by the end of the tutorial you should be able to do something like this:


(Not AS Safe for demonstrative purpose)

Spoiler for Tutorial:

This is the sig I will be using as base.


1) Make a new layer and take the gradient tool with the following settings:



2) And make a gradient on the new layer.

3) Filter -> Render ->Difference Clouds

4) Image -> Adjustments -> Invert (Ctrl+I)

5) Set the layer mode to ‘Screen’.

6) The bolt should be starting to be visible by now, but it’s still too bright.



7) Duplicate the layer.

8) Hide one of the layers. For the visible one:

Image -> Adjustments -> Levels (Ctrl+L)

8) Pull the middle slider towards the right side, until almost the end. Leave some brightness in the lightning bolt.




9) Do the same for the duplicated layer, but at that one take the slider till the end.




10) Take a large and soft eraser and erase all the extra white spots from the layers.




11) Make another new layer and grab a large soft brush at a low opacity and brush a little around the place where the bolt should be.




Set the layer to Soft Light. Hide this layer for now as we will need it later.

Now, time to animate it!

12) Switch to Image Ready or open your animation panel (CS3).

13) We don’t need anything in the first frame, so hide both of the lightning layers. Set it’s delay to something larger (a few seconds), because this is also going to be the delay between lightning strikes.




14) On the second frame we want the brighter bolt visible, so unhide that one.



(I also lowered the opacity to 80%, but do so only if you think it fits the animation – experiment!)


17) Make another frame and unhide the other lightning bolt. Also unhide that speck of white we made earlier at step 11.




18) Fourth frame. Hide the brighter bolt.




19) Tween the last frame with the following settings.




This is what my animation panel looks like, so if you followed everything, there should be something similar:





And in the end… Good luck with optimizing it to make it AS safe!



Result:



I hope you've found this tutorial useful if not actually learned something new from it.