Lightening
Our original image was taken at Lythan St Annes with the Nikon Coolpix 990 just as a thunder storm was brewing. We now want to make this image look as if the the storm is really beginning to rage. However, looking at our image we can see the figures are walking out of the picture so our first job is to move them to the left hand side.

 
Calling up the Free hand lasso from the tool box we start to drag it around the figure trying to keep it as close as possible. Once we have completed the selection the marching ants appear. Hitting Ctrl + J will copy and paste our selection to a new layer, by default named layer1. We can now move the figure into its new position using the move tool. If you still have the lasso selected try holding down Ctrl, this will change it to the move tool. We can repeat the same steps with the dog.

 

Any unwanted edges around our figures can easily be removed using a layer mask. Clicking on the add layer mask icon on the bottom of the layers palette will apply a layer mask to our image. Calling up the paint brush and choosing a small soft edge brush from the options bar, we can remove any unwanted areas. Don't forget that black (foreground colour) will remove an area whilst white will restore it, try using the X key to change from one to the other.

Once we are happy with our image we can combine all the layers together by choosing merge visible from the layers menu.

 
We can remove the original figures from our image using the clone tool and then selecting a soft edge brush from the options bar.

 
Now to add some serious atmosphere to our image. From the image menu we call up the levels palette image > adjust > levels (short cut Ctrl + L). Moving both sliders inwards until they reach the edges of the histogram, will make quite a difference to our image but we can darken our image even further by moving the centre slider to the right... this introduces darker pixels to our image.

 
Our sky can be darkened even further. Select the free hand lasso from the tool box and drag it in a wavy line just above the horizon, then up and around the rest of the sky until it joins up with the starting point. We have now selected our sky area and the familiar marching ants can be seen. From the select menu choose feather and enter a radius of approximately 50 pixels. We can now call up the levels palette again and by moving the centre slider to the right will really darken our sky making it even more threatening.

 

Now we want to add lightening to our image. We first put a new empty layer above our background layer by clicking on the create a new layer icon on the layers palette. Select the Paint brush from the tool box, and from the brush palette on the options bar choose a small hard edge brush around 9 pixels. This size may well vary depending on the file size of your image so try experimenting . We can now begin to paint in the main bolt of our lightening.

Tip...The forks of lightening are slightly thinner than the main bolt so we need to reduce our brush size. Try using the lefthand square bracket on the key board - this will reduce the brush size.

 

We now need to add glow to our lightening. Click on the Add Layer Style icon on the button of the layers palette and from the menu select Outer Glow. We can change the colour of the glow to our lightening by clicking on the colour square, this opens up the Colour Picker palette where we can select a colour of our choice. The size and spread of the glow can also be adjusted by moving the sliders, so it is well worth experimenting until you find an effect that suits your image.

 
To make our lightening even more realistic we need to lighten the clouds where the lightening is breaking through. First we click on the background layer - this is now our live layer. On the layers palette click on the layer adjustment icon and select Hue / Saturation and move the lightness slide to around -25. This will darken our image again.

 
The layer adjustment also adds a layer mask which we can now use to brighten the cloud area. Calling up the gradient tool and selecting the Radial gradient in the options bar, together with the 'foreground to transparent' from the gradient picker. We can now click on the top of the bolt of lightening dragging down the main lightening bolt before releasing it. This will then lighten the clouds around the main bolt of lightening.

 
Finally we can flatten and save our new image.

 

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