How to Make the “Flare” Effect As Seen On WPCustomization.com
Since the site’s launch at the start of June 2007, several people have asked me to write a tutorial on how I made the “flare” effect that is used on the WordPress logo on one of my latest projects, WPCustomization.com. While the Flare filter is used on the background, most of the lighting is done with brushing and different blending modes. Here is a step-by-step tutorial on how to re-create this effect.
First, open up a new Photoshop document that is at least 800px by 500px, and fill the background with black. You’ll also need to find a logo or image to use for the flare, such as the WordPress logo.
Copy and paste the logo onto the center of your black-background document. Don’t make it too big, as there needs to be plenty of room around it for the lighting effects.
To start off the lighting, duplicate the logo layer and merge the bottom one with your black background. This helps to center the lens flare behind the logo. With the bottom (background) layer selected, go to Filter>Lens Flare. Use the 105mm Prime flare and position it at the center of the logo. Play around with the brightness; 75% seems to be a suitable setting.
Next, create a new layer under everything else and fill it with black. Using a 200px eraser, erase the edges of the flare layer above it. You can also turn down the opacity of the flare layer if you’d like. Then create a layer above the flare layer that is set on ‘Color’. Fill it with a pale version of the main color in your logo. In this instance, it’s a pale blue. Adjust the brightness and saturation settings to fit your liking.
The next step is to add some lighting behind the logo. First, duplicate the logo layer and make the entire thing white by turning the brightness of the logo up to 100%. Then give that layer a gaussian blur, enough to make a soft white blur, and place it behind the original logo. Finally, set its blending mode to Hard Light. Duplicate this layer and set it to Overlay.
Next, create a new layer and with a 35px soft brush, brush some white near the bottom of the logo. Give it a Gaussian Blur of about 5.5 and set the layer to Overlay. Duplicate this layer and press Ctrl/Cmd + F 5-6 times to repeat the filter. Set this layer on Soft Light.
At this point, you may want to adjust the coloring of the background with new lighting in place. You can also play around with the white “spotlights” behind the logo, making them bigger or blurring them more.
The next step is to add some flare effects in front of the logo. Create a new layer above the logo and select the 19px hard brush. Open up the Brushes dialogue and use the following settings:
Shape Dynamics
Size Jitter: 100%
Scattering
Scatter: 545%
Count Jitter: 100%
Now put the following two colors in your pallette:
Blue: #0171c8
Orange: #ffbf12
Brush some random circles at the bottom of the logo. Don’t overcrowd the area, just leave a few spots here and there. Create spots on multiple layers at different brightnesses and blending modes, and blur them all when you’re done.
The last effect to add is a little streak or two of light below the logo. To do this, create a new layer under the logo. With the circular marquee tool, draw a circle and then stroke it (Edit>Stroke) it with a 3px white border. Play with the Twirl settings (Filter>Distort>Twirl) until you get something you like. Set that layer to Overlay.
Finally, go back through your layers and touch up everything. Change colors, blur, move, anything you like that adds some more “zip” to the piece.
Thank you for reading this tutorial.
I'm Dan, an aspiring young developer making his way into the wonderful world of web development. I'm a WordPress guru and have written a few 
October 15th, 2007
elegant ! not much people use the lens flare nowadays
nice outcome ! i might try this
October 15th, 2007
First i Would like to thank You Very much.
I is very intresting, I like the way you have gave the efftes
of photoshop It’s very cool.
October 16th, 2007
Thanks a lot for the tutorial, the outcome is really beautiful.
October 16th, 2007
Hi
Its really a nice logo, but a problem appeared when I tried create an own. I dont get the Lens Flare to become blue, its just the standard whitete.. :S Am I doing something wrong??
October 16th, 2007
Maurits - you need to create a layer over the flare layer and fill it with a color. Set that layer’s blending mode to ‘Color’. I find that pale colors work best.
-dan
October 17th, 2007
Wow, this is cool. I wanted to change the “folder” icon for default windows XP, but i don’t know how to actually obtain it. Any pointers?
October 17th, 2007
Absolutely Mint, well done;)
October 17th, 2007
Dan, this is a great work!
Go on in this way.
Thank you.
Dario, from Rome, Italy
October 18th, 2007
That looks awesome.
October 18th, 2007
That’s so cool.
October 19th, 2007
very nice. I’ll use this on my website.
October 20th, 2007
Very nice effect. Like it
October 23rd, 2007
Very impressive. Thank you
October 23rd, 2007
sweet… except it would be better if the highlight struck the logo from the right direction (from the bottom, where the light source is)
October 25th, 2007
Very nice effect W/W
October 27th, 2007
[…] d: http://danphilibin.com/2007/10/11/how-to-replicate-the-flare-effect-on-wpcustomizationcom/ […]
October 28th, 2007
That looks good
October 30th, 2007
super sir
November 3rd, 2007
Hi!
I’m Roberto, administrator of Tutorialing (italian forum about photoshop’s tutorials).
Compliments for this tutorial is awesome.
Well, Can I translate this tutorial in italian for my forum (link in nickname)?
Obviously the translation will contain link back to your site and your copyright!
It’ll a simple translation only.
I hope to receive a positive response
Have a nice day!
Roberto
November 10th, 2007
[…] Creating a Lens Flare with the Wordpress logo Proving once and for all that Lens Flares despite being often equated with newbie-ism, can still be super cool!Visit Tutorial […]
November 10th, 2007
Cool effect, and well written tutorial! I did a few things differently - and here’s the result http://img127.imageshack.us/img127/7471/wordpresskt9.png Pretty cool : )
November 11th, 2007
Very nice! Just a shame that the WordPress Blog Customization website used a crappy website template/layout/css styling with it. It looks good though, nice tutorial.
November 11th, 2007
[…] Visit Tutorial […]
November 11th, 2007
Very nice tutorial!
Loveley outcome!
November 13th, 2007
[…] PSDTuts - Just Great Photoshop Tutorials: October IssueEine Übersicht von "frischen" Adobe Photoshop-Tutorials, die in Oktober veröffentlicht wurden. Darunter Creating A Leopard X and Creating a Lens Flare with the Wordpress logo. […]
November 13th, 2007
[…] of fresh Adobe Photoshop-tutorials published in October 2007. Among them Creating A Leopard X and Creating a Lens Flare with the Wordpress logo which are displayed […]
November 13th, 2007
[…] of fresh Adobe Photoshop-tutorials published in October 2007. Among them Creating A Leopard X and Creating a Lens Flare with the Wordpress logo which are displayed […]
November 13th, 2007
[…] of fresh Adobe Photoshop-tutorials published in October 2007. Among them Creating A Leopard X and Creating a Lens Flare with the Wordpress logo which are displayed […]
November 13th, 2007
[…] Dan Philibin » Blog Archive » How to Make the “Flare” Effect As Seen On WPCustomization.com (tags: tutorial design) […]
November 13th, 2007
kinda like the new abc logo
November 15th, 2007
[…] blendender Lichtschein, eher als so genannter Flare-Effekt bekannt, kann in einer Bildkomposition als Blickfang dienen, wobei ich auch gleich die Warnung […]
November 15th, 2007
[…] Pour réussir à faire cet effet dans Photoshop, Dan Philibin vient d’écrire un petit tutorial pas mal fait pour arriver à ce résultat […]
November 16th, 2007
Very great effect!
November 16th, 2007
amazing effect, thanks for sharing!
November 16th, 2007
[…] Dan Philibin » Blog Archive » How to Make the “Flare” Effect As Seen On WPCustomization.com (tags: photoshop tutorial) Keine TagsPopularity: 1% [?] […]
November 17th, 2007
Its wonderful. From long time, I was looking for this type of tutorial about flare effects
Thank you so much
November 17th, 2007
[…] Visit Tutorial […]
November 17th, 2007
[…] Dan Philibin » Blog Archive » How to Make the “Flare” Effect As Seen On WPCustomization.com (tags: photoshop tutorials effects effect cool design light flare) Bookmark speichern: Blink It | document.write(”Del.icio.us”) | Digg it | FURL | +Google | RawSugar | SearchFox | Slashdot | Spurl | Y! MyWeb […]
November 18th, 2007
I usually dont comment on tuts but i have to say thanks this time!
November 18th, 2007
[…] Photoshop技能列表，包括Lepard X和wordpress logo的制作。 […]
November 20th, 2007
nice idea but the tutorial is terrible. more screenshots are needed to support your text.
November 21st, 2007
this is cool
Great tutorial man and thanks a lot…
November 24th, 2007
[…] all you WordPress fans out there, I’ve turned the “flare” creation from this tutorial into a beautiful desktop background. Below is a wide range of sizes for you to choose […]
December 11th, 2007
Looks terrific Dan!
December 29th, 2007
[…] space, configured with PHP 5. Opening illustration created by Dan Philibin in his tutorial How to Make the “Flare” Effect. * = it requires a free registration on wordpress.com (which is different from the one on […]
January 3rd, 2008
[…] Ein dazu passendes Tutorial hat Dan Philibin: How to Make the “Flare” Effect. […]
January 20th, 2008
[…] quanto riguarda i tutorial segnalo: Create a realistic torn paper effect, Photoshop page tear, How to make the “Flare” effect, Electrifying Energy Beams, Creating a cool 3D web design effect e Top Best 55 Photoshop […]
January 30th, 2008
[…] Proving once and for all that Lens Flares despite being often equated with newbie-ism, can still be super cool! Visit Tutorial […]
February 23rd, 2008
[…] Dan wird ein eindrucksvolles Photoshop Tutorial presentiert welches beschreibt wie man Blendeneffekte gut in Szene setzt. Der ganze Effekt […]
March 6th, 2008
[…] This is really an amazing flare effect. You will learn to use different brushing techniques and different blending modes in Photoshop. 03.06.08 | (Click thumbnail to visit the site!) If you like this site rate it here: […]
March 8th, 2008
[…] also you can see How to Make the “Flare” Effect As Seen On WPCustomization.com […]
March 27th, 2008
[…] You can go to this tutorial here. […]
April 3rd, 2008
[…] How to Make the “Flare” Effect As Seen On WPCustomization.comIn this tutorial, the Lens Flare filter is used on the background. Then the lighting is created with brushes and different blending modes. […]
April 3rd, 2008
Really nice work - it’d be nice to see an equivalent tutorial done for GIMP
April 3rd, 2008
looks great. but its really hard to follow your steps… wish you would organize it a bit better.
April 3rd, 2008
Very interesting method of acquiring a lens flare effect! You’re definitely in my bookmarks!
April 4th, 2008
[…] How to Make the “Flare” Effect As Seen On WPCustomization.com In this tutorial, the Lens Flare filter is used on the background. Then the lighting is created with brushes and different blending modes. […]
April 4th, 2008
[…] Como realizar el “Flare” efecto utilizado en la versión de WPCustomization.com […]
April 6th, 2008
Very nice tutorial, did it, was pleased with result =) had to play around with some stuff - very usefull
thanx alot for ur post
April 8th, 2008
[…] How to Make the “Flare” Effect As Seen On WPCustomization.comIn this tutorial, the Lens Flare filter is used on the background. Then the lighting is created with brushes and different blending modes. […]
April 10th, 2008
this is cool… can i request? same but with Letter V inside and size 24×24 for a guild emblem in ragnarok online? please? here is my email
xx_kirby_uchiemaru06_xx@yahoo.com
please mail it to me =)
thankz for advance=)
April 14th, 2008
[…] How to Make the “Flare” Effect As Seen On WPCustomization.com In this tutorial, the Lens Flare filter is used on the background. Then the lighting is created with brushes and different blending modes. […]
April 21st, 2008
[…] How to Make the “Flare” Effect As Seen On WPCustomization.com In this tutorial, the Lens Flare filter is used on the background. Then the lighting is created with brushes and different blending modes. […]
April 21st, 2008
Cool. The outcome is really beautiful.
April 22nd, 2008
[…] How to Make the “Flare” Effect As Seen On WPCustomization.com In this tutorial, the Lens Flare filter is used on the background. Then the lighting is created with brushes and different blending modes. […]
April 25th, 2008
Sweet tutorial. I know its kind of outdated now but I love the flare effect.
May 4th, 2008
[…] How to Make the “Flare” Effect As Seen On WPCustomization.com- Here is a step-by-step tutorial on how to re-create this effect. […]
May 6th, 2008
I have followed your tutorial, but it was so different. The Lens Flare and other light effects I made are all white instead of blue. Do you know what happened?
May 6th, 2008
[…] How to Make the “Flare” Effect As Seen On WPCustomization.com- Here is a step-by-step tutorial on how to re-create this effect. […]
May 6th, 2008
[…] How to Make the “Flare” Effect As Seen On WPCustomization.com- Here is a step-by-step tutorial on how to re-create this effect. […]