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Lens flare is one of Photoshop’s nicest effects, used a lot by digital artists and even photographers, it helps the user to add a flare effect that emulates different cameras, from a 50 mm zoom to a movie prime, there is a great addition to implement on your artworks, as we did on our latest space vortex tutorial. On today’s tip we will show how to adapt the lens flare idea to a brush, which you can use at anytime without having to adjust all the parameters from the filters panel, let’s see what this is.

First of all you need to set up your canvas, which must have the following values: 500 px X 500 px, RGB color mode and 72 dpi.

Great, now go the layers panel and add the following gradient fill:

Then reduce the layer’s opacity to 20 %.

Now go the layers panel and click on add layer mask, then choose the polygon tool and switch to star, adjust the indent sides to 99 % and 24 sides.

And we draw the following shape:

Duplicate the layer and go to the paths panel next to the layers, select the path and then go to Edit>free transform path and rotate it a little bit to the left.

Now double click over the gradient and adjusting according to the following screenshot:

Finally, reduce the layer’s opacity to 5 %.

Duplicate the layer, select the path and go to Edit>free transform path to rotate one more time a few degrees to the left and finally, increase its opacity to 10 %.

Add a new layer and enter the following gradient fill:

After this part, go to the add layer mask button and trace an ellipse.

And the next step is to add an outer glow effect.

Add a new layer and fill it with the following gradient:

And we mask it with an ellipse shape.

We now create a new layer and then we fill it using a gradient fill.

Then add a layer mask and trace an ellipse.

And reduce the layer’s opacity to 50 %.

Great, the next thing to do is add an outer glow effect.

Let’s add the final layer of our lens flare and proceed filling it with a gradient.

Then we add the layers mask and we start drawing an ellipse.

And we are done with our lens flare, let’s take a look at it:

To make the brush, select all the layers and merge them into one.

And having all the layers merged, go to Edit and select Define Brush Preset.

Give it a name if you like to and you’re done making your lens flare brush.

You will be able to find your brush within the brush section, all you have to do is select it and start painting, let’s know how it went and what kind of tips you’re expecting to find at Tutorialshock.