This tutorial will show you how to make some really great fireworks using Photoshop. It’s a great technique to use on celebration cards and posters, as well as graphics pertaining to holidays such as New Years and Independence Day.
You may have seen this effect a few days ago in Tutorial9’s New Year’s Announcement.
In this tutorial, I’ll be demonstrating how to create this effect.
Step 1 - The Background
Go ahead and create a new document, and select the Paint Bucket Tool.
Unless you plan on tweaking your fireworks color with Color Balance Layers (or by some other means) later on, the fireworks color will largely depend on what you choose your background color to be. We want a background color that is sort of dark, but also has some color value to it. I’ll be using a dark purple (#1c1727).
Fill your background layer with your chosen color.
Step 2 -The Burst (Stroke Paths)
If’ you’ve ever used Photoshop’s Stroke Path option before, this ought to be a cinch for you. For everyone else, we’ve got an easy guide to get you going.
Create a New Layer.
You’re going to need to select the Pen Tool from the tool bar, and in the options bar, you need to make sure that you’re working with Paths instead of Shape Layers.
On your document, left click somewhere near the center of the canvas to create a point with the pen tool.
Left click again up and to the right of this point to create a new point. This time, hold down the mouse button, and drag towards the bottom right to Curve your path.
This will become the path which we will use to streak a beam of light across to make the “Burst Effect”.
Select the Brush Tool. Select a Foreground Color of White. Set the Size of the brush to 3px (Hardness 100%).
Under Shape Dynamics for your brush, set up a fade of around 200px.
Go back to the Pen Tool. Right Click anywhere on the Canvas, and select Stroke Path. From the Box that pops up, make sure you select the Brush as the tool. This will tell Photoshop to use that brush you just set up to stroke the path you drew with the pen tool.
Once you have stroked your path, hit Esc Twice to make the Path line disappear.
Repeat this step several times until you have a few similar lines. Remember to always start your path from the outside going in, as the fade will begin from the first point.
Step 3 - Burst Blending Options
We need to touch up our burst effect a bit by adding some blending options to our burst layer. Right Click the Layer, and select Blending Options. Add the following Drop Shadow, and Outer Glow.
This will add a slight glowing effect to your burst streaks.
Step 4 - Ambiance Effects
Create a new Layer, and place it underneath your burst streaks layer.
Select the Brush Tool, select a default round brush (to override your earlier modifications to the brush tool), and then set the hardness to 0% and the size to somewhere around 200px. Set the Foreground Color to white. Click once to near the center of your streaks.
Set this layers Blending Mode to Overlay.
Create a new Layer above the streaks now. Using a smaller brush (50-100px, hardness still at 0%, or very soft), create a small circle at the center of the streaks again, where they all start to converge. Set this layers Blending Mode to Overlay. Repeat this a few times (you should end up with 3-4 layers).
Step 5 - Adding the Sparks
Select the Brush Tool once more, and set it up as follows (We are setting up a “Glitter”, “Sparkle”, “Fairy Dust” brush, so you may already have the idea on how to set this up).
Now that you have your brush set up (which you may want to save for later use), Create a new Layer on top of all your previous layers, and brush in some sparks for your firework. Try to concentrate mostly around the center area, easing up on the sparks as you go outwards.
I usually like to add an Outer Glow at this point in the Blending options of this new layer. It lets me add some spark ambiance, as well as add some extra color to the firework.
Your firework should look pretty good by now!
Final Remarks
The fireworks in this tutorial hardly aim to replicate the look of a real world firework, but from an illustration perspective, they capture the elements of fireworks in a fun, creative manner.
To go a step further, you may want to add some Color Balance layers to add some colorful effects to your fireworks. You could also play with depth of field effects to give more depth to larger scenes.
Feel free to download our Fireworks Example PSD to see how we went about doing things!
And don’t forget to take a look at some of the other Photoshop Tutorials we have to offer here!
Creating Holiday Wreaths
Add a Fresh Splash to your Design
Windows Vista Aurora Effect Photoshop Tutorial
Create a Surreal Environment Using a Photo
wow nice tut im definitly going to use this cant wait for the forums to open up
keep up the good work
It looks pretty cool but its sad that the lines are so visible, you should make it more realistic! But great work!
I love fireworks. It’s a great trick!
that was great one and look very much real u guies done great job
thanks
Ey david, I dunno if it’s a problem with my version of photoshop(CS2) but I don’t seem to get that glowing effect in step 5. In fact, there doesn’t seem to be any difference after I apply those settings. Help?
Oh sorry, I meant the settings in step 3.
Wow, this is nice. It´s simple, yet effective. For cases like party sites, this is tha sh*t xD
its superb thanks for sharing.
http://www.zee7.deviantart.com
superb. Can’t wait to try it out.
Hey great work =) one thing just how did you do that color balance thing? i’m bit of a beginner and i looked at the Fireworks Example PSD but couldn’t figure out how you did it. was wondering if you know if theres a tutorial anywhwere or theres a chance anyone can tell how its done? =O
Zack - I just wanted to second your question when I was struck by a ligtning (or was it a firework
) and finally figure it out. This is what I did:
- using round marquee tool select area that you want to change color
- feather the selection
- Layer -> New Adjustment Layer -> Color Balance
That’s it
Doh! It is so simple now - but it took me ~15minutes to figure out.
===
David, keep up the good work! Your tuts are great! They actually make me think not only repeat step by step. These are most instructive tutorials I have ever seen!
Tank you David
Thanks everyone =) Hope you’ll make some good use from this tutorial with the upcoming Independence day (If you’re from the USA that is)
@ Dybcio & Zack - That’s a great solution to Zacks problem Dybcio
An alternative way would be to Ctrl + Shift + Click each of the individual layer preview thumbnails (in the layers palette), which would in effect create a selection of all the individual layer contents. At that point, applying a New Adjustment Layer would use that selection as a mask, only effecting the layer contents you selected.
Again, thanks for all the feedback folks! I really appreciate your support!
I did it now just like you wrote David and it works
Earlier I tried to [b]CTRL[/b] + Click on [u]Layer Set[/u] but all I got was Warning: No pixels were selected. I have not thought about clicking on each layer from the set. Well, now I know how to do this thanks to you 
PS. Where can I find RSS feed for comments? Or maybe you don’t have it here? I would like to see one here, please
@ Dybcio - http://feeds.feedburner.com/tutorial9discussion
I’ll see to adding a more prominent link to it somewhere on the site
Glad you’re interested in participating in our discussions here!
hi, do you know why i can’t stroke path? i did just like you said but when i cliked right and in that box it was stroke path but i can’t click on it cause it dosent let me. plese help
For the stroke path, right click anywhere on the window except by the curve you created. I was having the same problem myself.
thanx….it works:D
Excellent design! This technique has helped me a lot in taking my Photoshop effects to the next level. I never knew about the brush dynamics or paths. Keep it up.
i’m having some problems: sometimes when i make the path and specify the brush fade length and stuff and try to stroke path, it won’t let me do it. :S
Hey I can’t get the stroke fade to work. Even when I use the pen tool the stroke fades out really quickly. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.
why i didnt get the same fade when i click twice (esp) for the path lines?
Hi! When I apply the blending options to the burst layer, nothing seems to happen… Any idea where I go wrong? I have a background with the color used in the tut, and a burst layer copied from the background.
Wow! This really added something to my art I was missing. Thanks for this wonderful tutorial.
some of the issues with selecting “stroke path” is that you might have accidently used the pen tool in the “Shape Layers” mode vs the “Path” mode. It can sneakily switch back sometimes. Another issue is possibly forgetting to set the correct color for the Brush so it appears correctly. Just an FYI.
Awesome!!
Thank you, very easy tutorial to follow for a newbie at Photoshop!!
another nice tutz….