Skillz's Photoshop tutorials

Well this is my first tutorial, I call it Lightning Shine, it's a simple background that makes it look as if lightning is streaming past the background 

Step 1: Start a new file, I use 500x500 it works best as a square and go Filter>Render>Clouds, then Filter>Render>Different Clouds.

Step 2: Press Ctrl+I to make it look more like lightning, if it looks as if the lightning is coming from 1 corner then that's good, unless, restart from Step 1 until it does, the best is either of the top 2 corners. Once it does, press Ctrl+L and change the box with 1.00 in it to 0.10

Step 3: Press Ctrl+U and set Colorize and the boxes to (in order) 180, 50, 0 (it doesnt have to be this colour but I think it works well) press ok.

Step 4: Go to Filter>Render>Lens Flare, 105mm prime with a brightness of around 160 and move it to the corner where the lightning seems to be coming from.

Step 5: Make a new layer and go to Filter>Blur>Motion Blur set the pixel distance to 45 and depending on the corner put the angle to: Top Left/Bottom Right: -45, Top right/Bottom Left: 45. Set the layer to lighten and set the hue/saturation (Ctrl+U) to Colorize, 200, 50, 0 and merge the two (Ctrl+E)

Step 6: Create a new layer (Ctrl+J) and go to Motion Blur again, keep the angle but set the pixel distance to 999, press OK and go to hue/saturation again and set it to Colorize, 250, 50, 0 and set the layer to screen, merge the layers and there you are!

Hope you like it, enjoy!