Starburst tutorial?

[Pyro2o6]

Umm, I need a tutorial for a starburst.. I think it was called a starburst, umm when the sun shines and reflects off metal, and it's a bright spot? Well, if anyone has the link, please post. I've searched all 14 pages in the tutorials using ctrl+f and I typed in star, and after that i typed burst..

Ty for reading and helping.

[Ash]

Post a pic so others will know how to help you better.

[Pyro2o6]

Oh, okay. Um, it's also called a lens flare, so here it is:

Also, here's another one I really like, but this one is from a manga tutorial on photoshop.

[Mr Frojo]

There is a lens flare plugin in development right now.

[Ash]

Check this for hints:

viewtopic.php?p=29087#p29087

[Pyro2o6]

Kk, thanks for the links. But is there a way to make it without the plugin, and without just 4 lines coming out of a dot?

[Crazy Man Dan]

Is something like one of these what you're looking for?

[Pyro2o6]

Yeah, it does look like it. How did you make that?

What I'm trying to do is just make a glare/lens flare on a metallic figure.

[Crazy Man Dan]

That one was made using the following plugins:

Required:

• [*:c0ac3]

Gradient Bars
[*:c0ac3]Rectangular to Polar Conversion (CodeLab script with Bilinear Resampling by Illnab1024)
[ If you don't have CodeLab, you can download a compiled DLL here: Dowload ]

Optional:

• [*:c0ac3]

Align Object

Create a new canvas with square dimensions, for example 400px x 400px, using the button on the Toolbar across the top.

Set your Primary color to White and your Secondary color to the color you want the sheen to be. In this case, that color was a deep pink color. After the Secondary color is chosen, Click [ More >> ] on the Colors window if it is not already expanded. Set the Transparency - Alpha slider to 0 for this color.

Press [Ctrl]+[A] to select the entire canvas. Switch to the Move Selection tool ( ), click on the top center nub, and drag the selection down 20 pixels from the top. Look in the lower left corner of the PDN window for the selection bound size - this size should be 20 pixels shorter than the height of the image.

Use the Gradient Bars plugin (Effects -> Render -> Gradient Bars) on the new layer while the selection is still active. Set the Scale to 80 and press OK. Press [Ctrl]+ to invert the selection, and fill the top 20 pixels with white by pressing [backspace]. Press [Ctrl]+[D] to deselect.

Use Rectangular to Polar (Effects -> Rect to Polar) on the layer with the Gradient Bars. This will swoosh the spikes around in a circle. If visible, delete the extra colored bar at the top of the image using either select > [ Delete ] or the eraser. Choose Zoom Blur (Effects -> Blurs -> Zoom Blur) and set the Zoom Amount to 100.

Create another new layer and switch to the Gradient tool ( ). Switch the mode to Radial ( ). Your Primary color should still be white and your Secondary the fully transparent ray color (if you haven't changed the colors at any time since the step where I said to, you should be fine). Place the cursor over the very center of the image (200px | 200px in this example - the lower right corner of the Paint.NET status bar will tell you the current cursor position). Click and drag left approximately 100px to create a bright burst in the center.

Create another new layer. Press [X] to flip the Primary and Secondary color. Your Primary color will now be the color for the outside of the rays. Slide the Transparency - Alpha slider back all the way to the right. Click the Ellipse ( ) to select it. Across the top on the toolbar, make sure the tool is in Outline ( :ShapeOutline: ) mode.

Click and drag to create a circle around your burst. You can either press Shift to make it a true circle, or you can keep an eye on the dimensions in the status bar. If it isn't in the exact center after it is drawn, you can use the Align Object plugin as linked above (Effects -> Align Object). The default for this tool is Middle Center, which is the setting you want, so Click OK.

Select Zoom Blur again to smoosh this refracted highlight out. If you don't think 100 looks right, you can lower this setting to taste. If you wish, you can invert the colors of this layer (Adjustments -> Invert Colors) to make it look like real light refraction.

To see how it looks on a dark background, you can also invert the colors of the Background layer for the time being. If this is the effect you want, hide the Background layer by clicking the checkbox to the right of its name in the Layers window, click File -> Save As.., name this file as Burst (change the dropdown to PNG), press OK (click Flatten when prompted), and import the PNG into whatever image in which you need this effect.

If you wish, you can press [Ctrl]+[Z] to unflatten the Burst image and save it as a PDN for future editing.

And that's the text version. If you'd like, I can put together a real tutorial with images and such. I hope that helps!

[BuzzKill]

Create a new canvas with square dimensions, for example 400px x 400px, using the :AddNewLayer: button at the bottom of the Layers window.

If that doesn't work, you can...

Create a new canvas with square dimensions, for example 400px x 400px, using the button located in the toolbar.

:wink:

[Crazy Man Dan]

Oh, be quiet you.