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Special lighting effects and big, bold simulated light trails are still a common trend in print, tv and web media. Advertisers and web designers are still in love with the way they can lift a lot of images and give some much needed depth and sparkle, but how are they created? I have tried and tested a few techniques and tutorials which I think are particularly good at helping you get the look in your own designs. Try these out:

Justin Maller for Computer Arts - Expressive lighting effects - this is a great, in depth tutorial from the ever brilliant CA. Justin takes you right through the process of preparing your start image and then harnessing the power of standard Photoshop filters and tricks to create some really classy bright light trails and effects. 2-3 hours recommended if you want to follow this step by step (components provided) but if you’re anything like me you’ll prefer to digest this more quickly and then go play with a design of your own.

Dan Philibin - Flare Effect - a nice simple walk through from Dan on creating flares around images. Creating flares can be good for drawing the users attention to key points of a site or image, especially with advertising.

Abduzeedo - Magic Lighting - this neat little tutorial shows how to generate great, bright flare lights and effects out of literally nothing. Probably the best, most easily recreated effects to apply to your own images and graphics.

It’s great to see a normal looking image lifted by some special effects, please comment with a link if you achieve any results you like in your own work by using any of these guides.