… for Visual Effects

Tip #868: Lighting Effects for Better Backgrounds

Larry Jordan – LarryJordan.com

Lighting effects can add color, texture and control where the eye looks in an image.

Built into Photoshop is a very capable lighting effect generator. This is particularly useful when you need to convert a stock footage image into a background plate for a green-screen key, then match it to the lighting needed for your story. Here are two tutorials on how this works.

NOTE: Background plates are still images, used behind green-screen keys, to give the actors an environment to act in. As long as the camera doesn’t more, these can be completely believable. Hollywood has used these for years.

Written by Colin Smith, for Photoshop Cafe, these two tutorials illustrate how to use Lighting Effects to simulate real lighting. The first adds colored gels in Photoshop and the second re-lights a scene and adds texture.

Here’s the link to the complete tutorial.