Cool Trick for Adding a Realistic Lens Flare in Photoshop

On this video Colin Smith from PhotoshopCAFE shows how to add realistic looking flares to your shots in Photoshop.

After about a week of hiatus where we covered Photokina 2016 (the videos from the show will start publishing here on LensVid very soon after we edit them) we are getting back to our usual daily publication schedule.

The trick that Smith shows in this video is simple – create a grey layer, turn it off. Make a lens flare  (filter>render>lens flare) and place it in a reflected place or from your light source in your image. Smith uses the 105mm (he uses about 120%).

This lens flare is destructive – if you want a non destructive version – hit ctrl Z to undo it and apply hard light blend layer and press ctrl F it will repeat the last filter that you used and now you can play with it in a non destructive way.

You can also give it a little bit of color with a new layer add a gradient an use something light soft light blend mode (you don’t have to do that if this looks too much to you).

We have already looked at adding lens flare to your images on Bryan O’Neil Hughes’ video: “How to Add & Remove Lens Flare in Photoshop” as well as a two videos by Nace called simply: “How to Add Lens Flare to your Image in Photoshop“ and more recently “The Best Way to Use Lens Flares in Photoshop“ and “Making an Accurate and Adjustable Lens Flare in Photoshop“.

You can find many more Photoshop video tutorials on LensVid’s Photoshop section. You can find more PhotoshopCAFE videos here on LensVid.

Iddo Genuth
Iddo Genuth is the founder and chief editor of LensVid.com. He has been a technology reporter working for international publications since the late 1990's and covering photography since 2009. Iddo is also a co-founder of a production company specializing in commercial food and product visual content.

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