Hi. This is Marty from Blue Lightning TV.
I'm going to show you how to transform a beautiful, serene day...
into an apocalyptic, nuclear explosion. This is an update to a tutorial I did on an
earlier version of Photoshop.
I provided this image for you to download, so you can follow
along. Its link is located in the video description or project files.
Make a copy of it by pressing
Ctrl + J on Windows or Cmd + J on a Mac.
Zoom out of your document by pressing Ctrl or Cmd and the minus key, twice.
Go to View and make sure Rulers and Snap are checked.
If they aren't, just click on them.
Go to the top Ruler and drag out a guide line to the top
of the document. It'll snap in place because we have Snap checked. If you don't see it,
press Ctrl or Cmd + H. Go to the left Ruler and drag out another guide line to the center.
Open your Transform Tool by pressing Ctrl or Cmd + T.
Click the Warp icon.
By dragging the points and lines of the grid, you can drastically warp your image. In this example,
go to the right, top corner and drag it out to the edge of your canvas flush with the
guide line. Repeat this on the upper, left corner.
Press Ctrl or Cmd + 1 to see your
document at 100%. Go to this crosshair of the grid and drag it to the left approximately
this much. Repeat this on the opposite crosshair making sure that the end of the
highway remains in the middle and the painted, yellow lines are straight.
Then, click the checkmark or press Enter or Return.
To hide the guide lines, press Ctrl or Cmd + H.
If your foreground and background colors aren't black and white respectively, click this icon
or press "D" on your keyboard.
Click the new layer icon to make a new layer. We'll fill
it with black and since black is the foreground color, press Alt or Option + Delete.
Go to Filter, Render and Lens Flare.
Make the Brightness: 75% and the Lens Type: 50-300mm Zoom. Drag
the lens flare to the center of the preview window. Then, click OK.
Go to Filter, Blur and Gaussian Blur.
Blur it 25 pixels and click OK.
Make a copy of it
and let's name it "Road Flare".
Click off the eyeball to temporarily hide the layer and click the thumbnail of
the original lens flare to make it active. Open your Transform Tool
and click the chain-link
icon to link the Width and the Height. Type in 300 in either the Width or the Height.
Notice, both are now 300%.
Then, click the checkmark or press Enter or Return.
Change the Blend Mode to "Hard Light".
Make the Road flare layer visible and active. Change its
its Blend Mode to "Color Dodge".
Open your Transform Tool
and for the Height, type in
50%. Make sure the chain-link is not highlighted. The Width should remain at 100%. click
Then, click the checkmark.
To move the road flare to the road, just drag it down. The next few steps
will be to add multiple lens flares of various shapes to create the look of the explosion.
Click the thumbnail of the large lens flare to make it active and make a copy of it.
Drag it to the top of the Layers panel.
Open your Transform Tool and this time, for the Width,
type in 300 and for the Height, type in 60.
Then, click the checkmark.
If you want to nudge the lens flare, just drag it.
Make a copy of the layer
and open your Transform Tool.
For the Height, type in 50.
Change its Blend Mode to "Color Dodge".
We're going position the Lens Flares on the explosion as we create them.
To prevent them from snapping into positions
we don't want, go to View and click on Snap to disable it.
Drag the Lens flare straight
up approximately this much. This makes the explosion look like its expanding the higher
in the sky it goes.
Make a copy of the layer
and open your Transform Tool.
Make the Height: 10.
Drag it to the middle of the horizon line and to accept it, click the checkmark or press
Enter or Return.
Make a copy of the layer
and open your Transform Tool.
Make the Width: 50 and the Height: 200.
Then, accept it.
Drag the flare straight up to the top of the large explosion.
Make a copy of the layer
and just drag the copy straight up approximately this much.
Make a copy of the layer
and open your Transform Tool.
Make the Width: 30
and the Height: 50.
Then, accept it.
Drag it straight up approximately this much.
The next few steps will be to add this hot, yellow color
to further enhance the fireball's intense heat.
Click the New layer icon to make a new layer.
Fill it with black
and go to Filter, Render and Clouds.
Change its Blend Mode to "Overlay".
Click the Adjustment layer icon
and click Gradient.
The Style is Linear
and the Angle is 90 degrees. Click the gradient bar
and click the Black, White preset box.
Click the lower, left Stop and the color box.
Type in F9D300 and click OK or press Enter or Return.
Click the lower, right Stop, the color box
and this time, type in: 443B06. Click OK on all three windows.
Go to Layer
and "Create Clipping Mask".
The Gradient adjustment layer will slide to the right, indicating that its
being clipped to the one layer beneath it, which is the cloud layer.
Lastly, we'll brighten just the dark areas of our image.
Click the New Layer icon to make a new layer.
Make a composite snapshot by pressing Ctrl + Shift + Alt + E on Windows
or Cmd + Shift + Option + E on a Mac.
Go to Image, Adjustments and "Shadows/Highlights".
Make the Shadows 35 or 40%
and click OK.
This is Marty from Blue Lightning TV.
Thanks for watching!