Enhancing the Sunburst Effect

PSP 7's new Sunburst Effect lets you add a light flare to your image. You can set various options for the light, including its brightness and point of origin, and the number and density of the light's rays.

To apply the Sunburst Effect, you'd choose Effects > Illumination Effects > Sunburst, adjusting the settings as you like, and clicking OK. The dialog box below shows Sunburst with its default settings, which are the ones you get when you click the reset button at the bottom right of the dialog box.

In this tutorial we'll look at how to enhance the Sunburst Effect by applying the effect not to your original image layer but to a second layer instead.

1. Begin either with your own image or with this photo of an Asiatic Lily from my garden:

   

   (To download this image, right-click on the image and select either "Save Image As" in Netscape or "Save Picture As" in MS Internet Explorer.)

   If you were to apply the effect with its default settings, the result would look like this:

   

2. We're not going to apply the effect to the original layer, though. Instead, click the New Layer button on the Layer Palette to add a layer above the original image layer. (Press L on the keyboard if the Layer Palette isn't yet showing in PSP.)

   Then Flood Fill the new layer with black. Choose the Flood Fill tool, and set black as the Foreground color in the Color Palette. (If you're not sure how to set the Foreground color, click here.)

   Now, apply the Sunburst Effect to this black layer. Here's the result with the default settings:

   

3. On the Layer Palette, set the Blend Mode of the black sunburst layer to Screen. What you'll then see is something almost identical to what you'd see if you'd applied the Sunburst Effect directly to the original layer:

   

4. Now you can modify the black sunburst layer to get enhanced effects. In the example below, I applied Effects> Blur > Blur to the sunburst layer and then colorized it with Colors > Colorize set to Hue 30 and Saturation 75:

   

   Experiment to see what other enhanced effects you can get by modifying the sunburst layer. Try various blurs and other Effects, adjust the layer's Opacity, or try Blend Modes other than Screen.

Thanks to my fellow beta testers, Bonesy and Porter, for helping to inspire this tutorial!