Laser-Cut Metal

[lurgias]

Originally Posted by Blu3

To do the spark thing is quite easy; I'll refer to this laser cut tutor:
U have now 3 layers: background, cut and residue.
Apply on cut and residue layers Lens Flare filter[ Filter/Render/Lens Flare] and chose Movie Prime; the Brightness I set it around 150% [experience a little with it and chose what fits U].
Now merge all 3 layers in 1.
Finally on this last layer [Background] apply again this Lens Flare; go to Filter/Render/Lens Flare - for a "blue laser" use 105mm Prime and for a "red laser" use 50-300mm Zoom or 35mm Prime; the Brightness I set it around 95% [chose what fits U].
That's all.

Somebody can tell me the name of sparkle brushset used in this tutorial?

[RogueBase]

This is a neat effect. Thanks for the tute I can adapt this to doing some edging as well. Much appreciated.

[jprock1]

i left a post on this thread and it looks like it was removed.
instead of removing my reply how about updating the tutorial with the finished information needed to complete the flame.

as i said before this was a complete waist of time for me, i was friendly and pointed out what a great job the author did in the first 3/4 of the tutorial but totally dropped the ball with the final step.
and the referring comments have not offered a clear clean concise set of instructions that lead up to anything resembling the flame shown for me.

[Tamlin]

OK - the most important step to getting the "spark" effect right is choosing the right brushes. In addition to the brushes available at BioRUST, there is a good selection here:
PS Brushes.net - Photoshop Brushes, Your Number one source for Photoshop Brushes
I used some of the Lady Victoire "Flare" brushes.

The process is then just a matter of building up the effect, as follows:

1. Make a new layer for each brush stroke
2. Set the layer's Blending Mode to Screen
3. Vary the colour and the brush tip on each layer
4. Use Filter > Blur > Gaussian Blur to soften the brush strokes if necessary
5. Experiment with lowering each Flare layer's Opacity to help blend them together

Here is my take on the effect:


and here's how my Layers Palette looked:


As you can see, I used three different coloured "flares" (white, orange and yellow) and then added a simple round white "hot spot" to represent the point of the laser.

Hope this explains it adequately.