How to Put Lightning Inside the Bottle

This Photoshop tutorial can make everyone who wants to know how to create lightning in a bottle and you will be very surprised to learn how it is quickly and easy.


Final Image

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Step 1

Before starting this tutorial go thru Google Images to find some appropriate picture of bottle to work with. Open up the picture and start with our tutorial.

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Use the Pen Tool to create shape around bottle reflection as shown on my screenshot below:

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After that open Paths Palette and click on Load path as a selection button on the palette bottom.

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Press Ctrl+J to duplicate selected area. Then apply Image > Adjustments > Hue/Saturation to add some electric hue to the reflection.

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Remove selection with Ctrl+D.

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Now move to the next step. I would like to add glow from the bottle. Create a new layer and use Pen Tool again to create shape similar to bottle shape like on the picture below:

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Open up Paths Palette again and click Load path as a selection button on the bottom and fill selection with color of #383cc6.

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Go back to Layers palette. Remove selection with Select > Deselect (or press Ctrl+D). Then duplicate layer with Ctrl+J and apply Filter > Blur > Gaussian Blur for copied layer:

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See the result below:

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Go to layer under and use Select > Load Selection to select this layer.

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Then we can delete this layer, we don’t need it more. Go to copied blurred copy and press Delete button to clear selected area on this layer.

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Time to add the lightning in a bottle. Create a new layer again, then use the Rectangular Marquee Tool to create selection as on my picture below:

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Press D button to set up foreground and background colors as black and white. After that use the Gradient Tool to fill selection with black to white gradient.

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Then apply Filter > Render > Difference Clouds:

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Remove selection with Ctrl+D and invert colors by using Image > Adjustments > Invert:

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Then apply Image > Adjustments > Levels to change brightness and contrast for the future lightning.

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To finish off the tutorial I would like to change color of lightning. We can do this by using Image > Adjustments > Hue/Saturation with next parameters:

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And We’re Done!

After that change blending mode to Screen for current layer. That is it for now. We are done with our tutorial.

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