How to Create Northern Lights in Photoshop

Tutorial Description

Northern Lights are actually collisions between electrically charged particles from the sun that enter the earth’s atmosphere. Add this effect to any night photo in a few simple steps.

Painting Northern Lights

The key to painting Northern Lights is to start with a simple shape and then Warp it into the final form of the lights. In this case, we create a special Brush that scatters brush strokes, giving a more random Pattern to the Lights.

After Scattering brush strokes, a Motion Blur is applied to make it look like the Brush strokes are streaks of Light. It can be helpful to re-apply the Blur Filter to give a more scattered look.

Once you have created a ‘strip’ of Northern Lights, it is time to Warp it into place. To warp, press CTRL+T to bring up the transformation dialog. Then right-click on the layer and select ‘warp’.