Light trails in PS?

[TheStupidForeigner]

I just saw this photo on a music album (here: Ed Macfarlane of Friendly Fires) and it is giving me some interesting ideas. I'm not entirely sure but it looks like a long exposure taken where someone with coloured LEDs on a stick ran around making patterns. But would it be possible to create lines like these in photoshop? Maybe a custom brush and a certain blend mode?

Any ideas?

 

[SnappingShark]

Yes, I'd say so.

Create an image of stripes. Turn it into a brush. Set the opacity to about 25%, swoosh it over an image.

Although I've never actually used photoshop - so that's just my guess.

 

[idcanyon]

You would need a Wacom pen tablet, or similar, to allow you to adjust your brush size based on pen pressure. This would enable you to increase in size during the stroke so it isn't so flat. You would have to do some careful layer make work to put the people over the strokes that are in the background. The Screen blending mode would probably be what you want, but you could flip through them to make sure.

 

[KmH]

Composite 2 images.

 

[TheStupidForeigner]

You would need a Wacom pen tablet, or similar, to allow you to adjust your brush size based on pen pressure. This would enable you to increase in size during the stroke so it isn't so flat. You would have to do some careful layer make work to put the people over the strokes that are in the background. The Screen blending mode would probably be what you want, but you could flip through them to make sure.

Yes I have a wacom although I don't think the thickness of the trails would change except for because of their distance, so maybe warping them to add the distance would be better. And yeah I think screen would be the one for this. Anyway will try a few things tonight and see what happens.

 

[TheStupidForeigner]

I just tried all the blend modes without anything even slightly passable for a light trail :/ The reflected gradient tool seems to do okish but only for perfectly straight and completely unatural beams. Other than that I'm out of ideas...

 

[Buckster]

Bend them to taste with one or more of the warp tools and/or the liquify tool after creating them, for a more organic look.