Create Powerball Effect for Movie Poster

This tutorial will cover how to create a powerball (or energy ball) effect. It also shows briefly on the basic layout of a typical movie poster. The longest tutorial in 10Steps.SG. In fact, you can used this psd file and print out the poster throgh a poster printing service.

Preview of Final Image

Create a new document of 500×700 pixels. Fill the background with #000000. Create a new layer and name it as Flare. Fill the Flare layer with #000000. Selecting Flare layer, go to Filter > Render > Lens Flare. Choose 105mm Prime, and set the Brightness to 120. Position the Flare Center to the center of the preview. Then go to Image > Adjustments > Hue/Saturation. Check on Colorize. Set the Hue to 30, Saturation to 50 and Lightness to 0.

Duplicate the Flare layer. Rename the duplicated layer to Wave. Selecting the Wave layer, go to Filter > Liquify. Choose the Twirl Clockwise tool and enter the settings as shown in the diagram below. Create a twirl on the duplicated flare.

Create a new layer above Wave. Name the new layer as Burst. Set your foreground color to #D18803. Using the Brush tool with size 3px, draw a few crisscross lines. You may wish to press and hold down the Shift Key while drawing so your lines will be straight.

Selecting the Burst layer, go to Filter > Liquify. Choose the Twirl Clockwise tool and enter the settings shown below. Move your cursor to the center of the crisscross lines, click and hold down the mouse button till there is a small twirl forming.

Go to Filter > Blur > Radial Blur. Set the method to Zoom and quality to Good. Shift the Blur Center near to the right of the preview. Hit OK once done. Duplicate the Burst layer. Set the blend mode of the duplicated Burst layer to Color Dodge.

Download the Photoshop Brushes Set 11 from r0man.de. Load the brush into the brush palette and choose fl33. Create a new layer and name it as Electricity. Set the foreground color to #FFFFFF and paint the effect with an appropriate size.

Right-click on the Electricity layer and choose Blending Options. Activate Outer Glow and enter the settings shown in the diagram below. Now you have the powerball. Create a group folder and put all these layers into it. Name this group as Powerball. Set the Blend Mode of Powerball folder to Screen. Hide the group folder for now.

Download the Desert 02 from neverFading Stock. Place in the image and resize to fit the document. Using the Blur tool with size 150px, blur the top part of the desert. Then use the Eraser tool in Airbrush mode and size 100px, erase the bottom of the desert horizontally so there is a fade into the black background.

Download the DBZ 9 from Ahrum Stock. Crop out the man using either Pen tool or Extract filter. Place the man in the middle of the desert. Using the Eraser tool, erase slightly at the bottom below his arms.

Using the Pen tool, draw a path along the man’s right arm like the one shown in the diagram.

Unhide the Powerball folder now. Move the Powerball close to the man’s palms.

Go to Paths tab, select the path you have drawn and click on Load Path as Selection button. Go to Select > Modify > Feather. Set the radius to 20px. Back to Layers tab, select the Powerball folder and click on Add Layer Mask button.

Create a new layer and name it as Glow. Using Brush tool, set the mode to Airbrush, color to #D18803 and size to 200px. Paint a large dot on the powerball area. Set the blend mode of Glow layer to Multiply.

Download some dragons from Markopolio Stock. Place a few dragons at the background. Go to Image > Adjustments > Hue/Saturation. Tweak the colors of the dragons so they fit into the overall color scheme. Go to Filter > Blur > Gaussian Blur. Blur these dragons with 4px. Select the man layer, go to Filter > Sharpen > Sharpen. This is to distinguish better between the foreground and background items.

We are almost there. Now create a Levels Adjustment Layer and set the values to 21, 0.96, 231. Then follow by a Hue/Saturation Adjustment Layer and set the Saturation to 15.

The last thing you need to do is to insert your movie title along with some random names of movie makers. I shall not go into details on those. Hope you all like this tutorial. Greatly appreciate if there is a stumble or digg!