Making Magical glows in Photoshop- how to guide

I got a lot of compliments on my magical glowing book photo and some questions on how it was made. So I thought I would put together this quick how to guide on how to capture and edit your own magical glowing book or object photo and edit it in Lightroom and Photoshop.

I made this shot using my Nikon D3300 with a Sigma 17-50mm 2.8. Its actually a really fun and easy set up for any manual dslr, that almost anybody of any camera skill can do! There's no external flash or lighting setups, so the only things you will need for this is a book or object in which to illuminate, a cell phone or flashlight, and a person.

Grab what you need and download my ready made golden glow and sparkle overlay HERE 

Please upload and share your glow pictures with me at www.facebook.com/larenpix I would love to see everyone's creations!!!! 

1. Should be shot in a relatively dark room. I did mine in my living room with the lights out, but had some soft illumination from our newly decorated Christmas tree. My camera settings were. ISO-1600 40mm f/4.0 1/60sec

2. For this shot I chose an open book to illuminate, but you can use any object that is large enough to conceal your light source. My light source was my cell phone with a flashlight app turned on, inside the open book and facing toward her face. Its important that whatever light you use, either it be a cell phone or actual flashlight, is pointed toward the face. You must position the object so it conceals the light source. See the picture below how the top of the book it too low and reveals the light source. 

Top of book must be positioned higher to hide light source

3. It is also important that that light is not too close to the face, or you will get a blown out, over lit face. You want the face to "glow" If your initial shot is too bright in the face, try moving the light source back, or bring down the ISO on your camera.

Top of book is now positioned up enough to hide light

4. Now that you have your shot (the ones above have already been slightly edited in lightroom) I used Adobe Lightroom to add contrast, bring up the vibrance and check the color balance. I also added some split toning. and a tone curve to adjust the dark tones to be a bit brighter. Below is a screen shot of my lightroom panels

5. For the most part, you could stop here if you dont have photoshop or just dont feel like it needs the extra. For my photo however, I brought it into photoshop to give it that extra magical feel. 

a- duplicate your background into a new layer and make any corrections to face or skin via clone tool. I removed some dark shadows under he eyes. 

b.- Image<adjustments<Levels and darken midtones very slightly. You may use the dropdown menu as well in the levels panel to play with the look of your photo. I wanted to draw focus to her face, and so I made the midtones darker.

c- Image<adjustments<curves and adjust for contrast

d- now the fun part-  We're going to add a new fill layer with a gradient. You can do this by going to the layers menu<new fill layer< gradient. Or purchasing my ready made action HERE. Select Radial in the Style drop down menu and move into place your glow. Don't worry about how bright it is, we'll fix that in the next step. If its too large, use the scaling tool slider. To adjust the color of your glow, click the gradient at the top of the panel and and new menu will come up. I chose white for the outside of my glow, and yellow for the inside. Download my already made gradient and sparkle overlay HERE

 e- Add a vector mask to your gradient layer, and with the mask selected- use a soft black brush at half opacity to erase away the part of the glow going past the edge of the book. Download the gradient and sparkle overlay HERE

f- last but not least find a sparkle or glitter overlay that you like and add into project by file<place linked I used one I made, which you can purchase in the link below 

And thats about it! really super and simple, but if you have any questions please feel free to contact me at contactme@larenoriginal.com

Want to buy my glitter glow overlay? Click HERE I'm beta testing now to see who would be interested in buying overlays and actions, so if you are, please email me at contactme@larenoriginal.com 

Come see more www.larenoriginal.com

Please upload and share your glow pictures with me at www.facebook.com/larenpix I would love to see everyone's creations!!!! 

ENJOY! 

FAN FAVORITES!!!!!! Check out all the awesome glow goodness below from fans of La Ren Originals!