Photoshop tute: Adding muzzle flashes and more to your photos (PIC HEAVY)

Fled74

Fled74

Opinionated Arsehole
Jul 3, 2011
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Before I begin, I have to say that this tute works best with good, clear photos. Photoshop will not make a poorly-taken, blurry photo magically better.
I must also say that I am by no means a Photoshop guru. More skilled people will have their own way of doing things, but this way works fine for me.


Anyway, it's been quite a while since I promised to make this tutorial for you guys. Apologies to all the guys who PMed me about it.

Although it seems long and complicated, believe me, making the tute and taking screenshots were far more time-consuming than just adding the effects.

I'm using Photoshop 7 for this, but I'm pretty sure the techniques will work for other versions. You can probably find a torrent or something, although I'm not telling you guys to go DL some overpriced software...

You could try using GIMP, which is freeware, but I've never tried it myself so I'm not sure if it uses image layers the same way as Photoshop.

Anyway, here we go, and remember to SAVE OFTEN.

STEP 1
Open the pic you want to edit. I'll be using this pic of my custom Scarlett that I took for a dio story.
Now is a good time to resize your pic and adjust brightness, etc..
Once you're happy with it, open the muzzle flash image in a new pane. There are tons of free stock pics out there, just use Google Image Search or something.

Select the Rectangular Marquee in the Tools pane on the left, then select the muzzle flash.


Press Ctrl-C to copy the muzzle flash, then click the image pane and hit Ctrl-V to paste. Note that it is pasted on a new layer (Layer 1) automatically.


Go to Edit>Transform>Rotate. This will create a bounding box around the active layer (the muzzle flash, in this case)


Click and hold on a corner of the bounding box, then drag to rotate it. Be sure to match the angle of the weapon.
When you're satisfied, click anywhere on the left-hand Tools pane to apply the transformation.



STEP 2
Click the drop-down menu on the Layers pane to change the Blending Mode. Selecting "Screen" will turn the black background invisible. Don't worry if there are visible traces left, we'll address that shortly.


While holding down the Ctrl key, click and drag the muzzle flash layer to where it belongs.


You can resize the muzzle flash layer by going to Edit>Transform>Scale, then dragging a corner of the bounding box to make it larger or smaller. Holding the Shift key while doing this will maintain the layer's aspect ratio.


You can also tweak the layer brightness by going to Image>Adjustments>Brightness/Contrast.


Use the sliders to make adjustments. Increasing the Contrast will get rid of any visible remnants of the black background.


Muzzle flash is done! It looks much better with the added FX, but if you're like me you'll want to add a little extra something. Read on!
 
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Fled74

Fled74

Opinionated Arsehole
Jul 3, 2011
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HobbyStop.webs.com
STEP 3
To add flying brass, open this pic in PS along with your image.
I found the 5.56 casing on a stock photo website, and edited it for ease of use.


Using the Magic Wand tool, select the white space around the casing.


Then click Select>Inverse to select the actual casing.


Copy/Paste it onto your image, or you can also hold down Ctrl and drag the layer onto it.


Now, using Edit>Transform>Scale (as described in Step 3 above), you can resize the casing, holding Shift to maintain aspect ratio. Use Edit>Transform>Rotate to rotate the casing (obviously).
When you're happy with it, click anywhere on the Tools pane on the left to apply the transformations.
Once that's done, hold the Ctrl key and drag the layer to the desired position.



STEP 4
Now to introduce some movement to the flying brass.
Go to Filter>Blur>Motion Blur.


The Motion Blur pane appears, and you can adjust the angle of movement, and the degree of blurring.
When you're happy with it, click OK.


Looks great, but there's still something missing. We'll address that in the next step.



STEP 5
Needs dust! Specifically, the dust kicked up from the wall by the weapon firing.
Using the Eyedropper tool, select a nice dusty colour from the pic. I used a tan shade from the "street".


With the dusty hue as your foreground palette colour, and black as your background palette colour, you can create a new layer. Name it "DUST" to keep things simple.


With the new blank layer active, go to Filter>Render>Clouds. This will create a random cloudy pattern using the two selected colours in your palette - tan and black, in this case.
If you're not happy with the pattern you can always generate a new one.


Keeping the DUST layer active, change the Blending Mode to "Screen" like you did with the muzzle flash. This will turn the black invisible.
You can also tweak the brightness and contrast, but do so sparingly. Too much contrast will turn your cloud effect into an explodey wall of flame (try it and see - it's pretty cool and useful).


When you're done tweaking the dust cloud, you can erase the parts of it you don't need.
Select the Eraser from the Tools pane, then choose a large soft brush from the drop-down menu. I like the 200-pixel brush because it gives nice feathered edges.


I erased most of the cloud effect here, keeping only the area above the wall untouched.
You can also adjust the transparency of the cloud by selecting the Opacity slider on the Layers pane at lower right.


Now you're done!
Photoshop also lets you optimize pics for uploading. Go to File>Save For Web, adjust the quality, then save the optimized pic to your HD.



I hope you find this useful. Knowing these basic techniques will help you add that extra "oomph" to your action shots, and will open up a world of possibilities.
 
Last edited:
Rick

Rick

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Mar 14, 2011
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Fled, I've been wanting to figure this out forever! Thanks a bunch, I hate adding word bubbles but I definately want to do this for www.thefreedomcrusades.com

You da man!!
 
G.I.*EDDIE

G.I.*EDDIE

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I was lying awake last night trying to figure out how to do practical effects muzzle flashes...I think it could be done if I had small enough LEDs, but they might be too bright...
 
Fled74

Fled74

Opinionated Arsehole
Jul 3, 2011
7,281
12
38
Australia
HobbyStop.webs.com
G.I.*EDDIE said:
I was lying awake last night trying to figure out how to do practical effects muzzle flashes...I think it could be done if I had small enough LEDs, but they might be too bright...
Click to expand...

Maybe "grain of wheat" mini lightbulbs that model railroaders use, diffused with the same poly fiber you used for your explosion?
 
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