"Motion Blur & Lights"
"Motion Blur & Lights" taught me how to effectively use the Motion Blur effect, Field Blur, and Gradient Tool.
Process
After finding a good image of a road that has some good color contrast, I placed my image of the car in a spot that makes it look like it's on the road.
I then wanted to make it look like it was traveling at a high speed. I achieved this effect by using Motion Blur. I copied the car layer, and made a circular selection around the front tire and back end. I then applied Motion Blur to just that area, and used a soft brush to mask out the rough edges.
To continue to add realism, I "turned the headlights on." To do this I used a soft white brush and clicked once or twice over the headlights. Then, I added a soft bluish outer glow since they are LED headlights (you could do the same with a soft yellow outer glow for normal headlights).
Next, I added the high beams by selecting a semi-triangular area on and in front of the lights and filling it with white. Then, I added a Field Blur to that white selection with an extra fade point near the edge of the picture so I could have the light beam be brighter closer to the headlight, but more faded further out.
To spice up the headlights, I added little rays of light by painting smudges all over a black layer (which is deleted after) with a bright brush (red) and then applying a Radial Blur several times to make it look like they are stars and you are speeding past at light speed. I then changed the hue, contrast, and brightness of the red streaks to make it look like rays. Next, I transformed the layer, making it smaller, and positioned it on the lights.
Finally, the last thing I did to spice up the image was make an orange glow throughout the entire picture because it compliments the orange of the tunnel and the red of the car. I did this by adding a lens flare on an orange layer and setting the blending mode to overlay.
Final Layers
Picture URLs
Tunnel (Background):
http://eskipaper.com/awesome-road-tunnel-wallpaper.html#gal_post_9953_awesome-road-tunnel-wallpaper-1.jpg
Car:
http://www.cars.com/maserati/granturismo/2011/photos/
http://eskipaper.com/awesome-road-tunnel-wallpaper.html#gal_post_9953_awesome-road-tunnel-wallpaper-1.jpg
Car:
http://www.cars.com/maserati/granturismo/2011/photos/