Lightsaber Tutorial

In this tutorial basic steps will be presented to make a decent lightsaber duel.

Start off by importing your base images I used stock lightsaber images off the internet and used the magnetic lasso tool to select the blade. Double that and flip your second image by activating transform controls at the top tool bar above your image.

For you to add lights you will need to use the lasso tool and select your desired area, for this around the blades and where they intersect. Go to the top and select the tab saying Layer and select New adjustments layer from the drop down and select brightness and contrast at the top. You will then turn up the brightness to a reasonable level and go over to the mask tab off of the brightness menu and raise the feather to make it blend into the environment, do this for both blades and intersection.

Next use the magnetic lasso tool again and select the blade, then go up to the Layer tab, then to New Adjustment layer, then Color Balance and max out blue and put red and green to 0. For the blue glow you will go over your original glow with the same process, outline the glow with lasso then go to color balance underneath New adjustment layer, and max out blue and lower red and green to 0. Finally for this step go back over the mask and change feather to a "realistic" point.

To color this lightsaber, you will undergo the same exact process just with red. Use the magnetic lasso tool again and select the blade, then go up to the Layer tab, then to New Adjustment layer, then Color Balance and max out Red and put blue and green to 0. For the Red glow you will go over your original glow with the same process, outline the glow with lasso then go to color balance underneath New adjustment layer, and max out Red and lower blue and green to 0. Lastly for this step go back over the mask and change feather to a realistic glow.

To make the collision for the highlight and purple hue at the intersection you will need to begin with the lasso. With the lasso highlight a small circle around the intersection, go to Layer, New adjustment Layer, Brightness and contrast and turn it up high and on the mask tab, feather it only a little bit, then repeat the process with a bigger circle around it and feather it more than the smaller circle. For the purple hue you will need to go around the original small highlight in the middle and instead of going to brightness and contrast go to color balance, lower green to 0 and leave red and blue the same, go to mask and feather it as much as the smaller circle.

For the finale touches you will need to revisit the lasso and highlight your desired background, as you see I used a forest and I highlighted the surrounding's on each side then I went to Layer, new adjustment layer, color balance and I used the designated color on each side. Then I went over those colors with a brightness and contrast to highlight those even more. And your final design should roughly look like that image.