Twinkle Twinkle Little Star

Last month we looked at the Burn Tool on our Photoshop Tool Menus. This month I am going to show you a use for the Dodge Tool. If you remember these are located on your Tool Menu with the Dodge Tool represented by a little ball on a stick. Now instead of simply using the Brush Tool to create some stars I am going to use the Dodge Tool!

The Dodge Tool is used to add highlights or lighten your image, so to demonstrate this I opened up a black background and loaded a set of star brushes by Obsidian Dawn. The Dodge Tool uses the brushes you have loaded into your workspace and you can use them as they are or adjust them using the Brush Menu (typically to alter size or the angle).

As my background is very dark and I want my stars to glow brightly, I set my top menu selections to Highlights, with an exposure of 80%. Change your brush size to suit and repeatedly "stamp" in the same place to increase the highlight effect. Ultimately this will change the color of the pixels to white. I randomly added stars of various sizes and differing highlight strength and then switched to the Brush Tool to paint in a more yellow star. Changing back to the Dodge Tool and reducing the brush size slightly, I then stamped several times to get a highlighted glow in the center of the star.

This is a fairly simple example of how to use the Dodge Tool. Many digital designers use this tool to create highlights which add depth to digital elements, but you can just use it to decorate your layout or card. Try experimenting with different brush shapes and adding smaller highlights yourself!