Light Leaks, Lens Flare & Colour Overlays

Light Leaks, Lens Flare & Colour Overlays

Light leaks, lens flare & colour overlays can provide added interest to portrait photography. With digital cameras, light leaks don’t tend to happen as they did for film cameras. So, the effect is normally something you need to create during editing in Photoshop. If you shoot film then take a look at this article on creating light likes with film cameras. Types of lens flare can give a similar effect, but those too can be hampered by flare-resistant coatings on lenses. Lightroom can be used to create basic light leaks & colour overlays. However, Photoshop gives you much more control and many more options.

In this tutorial video, you will learn how to add light leaks, lens flare & colour overlays to your images. This allows you to insert lens flare and light leak effects during post-production. It also opens up creative possibilities for how you can use light and colour in your editing. For example, it can be an interesting way of introducing more colour harmony to an image. Or, it can be used to soften the overall feel of a photo. Or, you could introduce fake bokeh effects around your subject. Once you get the basic idea of how it works, simply play with colours and settings to see what you can achieve.

Images from this post have featured in Creative Portrait Magazine Issue 23.

© Joe Lenton, June 2017