Today I wanted to share my newest free action, CoffeeShop Rays of Light. This action automatically enhances the light in your images. I have a step-by-step CoffeeShop Rays of Light Action UnWrapped tutorial posted here if you want to learn how to do this without the action or are just curious what is happening "under the hood".
This action should be run on images that have light coming through objects like trees, mountains, and buildings. It automatically selects the light in your image and you adjust the amount and color of the rays.
CoffeeShop Rays of Light Action Tutorial:
Open your image. This picture is perfect for this action since there is some sun peeking through tree branches.
Start the action. The first prompt will ask you to add a radial blur effect to the light. I keep the Amount to 100, Blur Method on Zoom, and the Quality on Good. Simply drag the Blur Center to the brightest area, in this case the sun in the upper right-hand corner.
To make the rays look more realistic you might need to blur them.
I dialed up the Gaussian Blur to 27 in this image and I can really see a difference. You can also blur this effect after the action finishes running if you wish.
These are the layers you will see after the action is finished. The Adjust Contrast was renamed Adjust Color and Contrast in the final action. :-) You can adjust the opacity of the Light Rays layer to add a more subtle effect.
If you want to add some color to your light rays, turn on the top Light Ray Color layer and adjust the color and opacity to taste.
If you want to add more contrast you can click on the Adjust Color and Contrast layer (a levels adjustment layer) and adjust the sliders to add more contrast.
If you want a Matte-type of edit, slide the bottom-left black Output Levels adjustment slider to the right and slide the top-left shadow slider to the right. See screenshot above to get an idea of settings.
You can also use this layer to add color. I changed the RGB setting to Blue and added more blue to this image. I love playing with the Blue/Red/Green sliders. :-)
I hope you have fun playing with this action! Download the free CoffeeShop Rays of Light Action. You can also download it here.
Do you want to download my favorite CoffeeShop Actions or Design Elements in one convenient zipped file AND help support this blog? Just click here for my action pack or here for a download of some of my most popular design elements, storyboards, and textures.
For complete info on installing all of my actions, click here.
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