Lens flares...ugh. The easiest, cheesiest, most overused effect in computer graphics. I can't stand them and I won't use them. Star Wars modelers should know better. Stop putting flares in every single image! I can only think of one flare in the entire Trilogy (behind the Falcon when Han saves Luke from Vader at the Death Star in ANH). What do you think this is, Babylon 5?? (heh heh)
I figured there had to be an alternative use for lens flares, so I started playing around in Photoshop, and this is what I came up with
Yep, those are lens flares. Okay, so it's still kind of a useless effect, but at least I'm trying :)
Here's how it works:
Open a new file. It should be square, like 600x600, and all black. Go to Filter/Render/Lens Flare, and set the flare about midway between the center and the corner of the image (actually, a little closer to the center, for best results.) I think the 105mm lens works well for this effect.
The next few steps involve a process I call "radial inversion", where the image is literally turned inside-out...everything at the center goes to the outside, and vice versa.
Go to Filters/Distort/Polar Coordinates and choose Polar to Rectangular. Then flip the image upside down. In Photoshop4, this is under Image/Rotate Canvas/Flip Vertical. Now go back to the Polar Coordinates filter, but this time choose Rectangular to Polar. When this is done, you transformed a boring lens flare into a fantastic chrome sphere.
Use the circular marquee to select and cut the sphere out. (if you hold alt-shift when making the selection, you can draw from the center and make sure it's a perfect circle).
Paste the ex-flare on its own layer. Then play around with the Wave filter in Filters/Distort/Wave to give it a free-form organic shape. For the transparent bubbles above, I just made a background with fractal clouds, and made the sphere layer's mode Screen.
