Digital Star Effect

Turn a regular photo into a high-tech cool artwork with digital star effect.

Creating the Dots - Part One

First, we’ll transform a photo into a series of circles. This is done by combining several filters.

1. Open an image to edit.
   
   Image from iStockPhoto.com
2. Duplicate the layer (Layer> Duplicate Layer or Ctrl+J).
   
   A layer duplicated in the Layers pallet.
3. Select the new layer and apply a Mosaic filter (Filter> Pixelate> Mosaic) with a Cell Size of 8 square.
   
   Applying a Mosaic filter.
4. Apply a Find Edges filter (Filter> Stylize> Find Edges).
   
   Result of the Find Edges filter.
5. Apply a Median filter (Filter> Noise> Median) with a Radius of 2 pixels.
   
   The Median Photoshop filter.
6. To reduce the size of the dots, we’ll use the Maximum filter (Filter> Other> Maximum) to enlarge the white areas. Use a Radius of 1 pixel.
   
   Using the Maximum Photoshop filter.
7. Invert (Image> Adjustments> Invert or Ctrl+I).
   
   The thumbnail in the layers pallet should turn from white to black.

Creating the Dots - Part Two

Now we’ll create the outline of the circles. This layer will also be reused to create the star effect in the next page.

1. Duplicate the top layer (Layer> Duplicate Layer or Ctrl+J) and change the blending mode to Screen.
   Layer duplicated and blending mode changed to Screen.
2. Apply a Find Edges filter (Filter> Stylize> Find Edges).
   The Find Edges filter create outlines from the edges.
3. Invert (Image> Adjustments> Invert or Ctrl+I).
   Layer inverted.

The Star Effect

In this section, we’ll add the star effect. This is done using the motion blur filter.

1. Duplicate the top layer twice (Layer> Duplicate Layer or Ctrl+J).
   You should now have a total of 5 layers.
2. Activate the top layer and apply a Motion Blur filter (Filter> Blur> Motion Blur). Set the angle to 45º and the distance to 100 pixels.
   Using the Motion Blur filter.
3. Apply an Auto Levels (Image> Adjustments> Auto Levels or Shift+Ctrl+L).
   After apply Auto Levels, the motion blur effect should be more visible.
4. Now we’re going to do the same steps againusing a different Motion Blur angle on a different layer. Activate the layer below (Layer 1 copy 2) and apply a Motion Blur filter (Filter> Blur> Motion Blur). Simply type a “-” sign in front of the 45º and click OK.
   Using the Motion Blur filter on the layer second from the top.
5. Apply an Auto Levels (Image> Adjustments> Auto Levels or Shift+Ctrl+L).
   The star effect is now complete.
6. Add a Brightness/Contrast adjustment layer (Layer> New Adjustment Layer> Brightness/Contrast) and adjust the settings to get the results you want.
   
   Increasing contrast using a Brightness/Contrast adjustment layer.

Final Results

Final results
(Rollover your cursor over the above image to see the unedited image.)

Closeup of Final Results
(Rollover your cursor over the above image to see the unedited image. Click to view the 100% full size image)