photoshop tutorial abstract light rays

Step 1
Create a new document and fill the background color with this hex color value #2a3b4d or any color you would prefer.

Step 2
By using the edge of a photoshop shape, or drawing your own curves with selection tools or even the path tool create a shape similar to above. I accually used the edge of the heart vector shape as the color white.

Step 3
Right click the layer and Select Layer Transparancy. Click the eyeball icon to hide the shapes layer. Then on a new layer with your selection still selected use the Linear gradient tool white the color of white and click/drag into the selected area like above.

Step 4
You should have a similar result from following the previous step.

Step 5
On a new layer create a radial gradient of white and then set this layers blending mode to overlay and lower the fill to around 50% allowing it to blend with the background color.

Step 6
Now heading back to the light rays shapes layer, right click and duplicate the layer and then using CTRL + T rotate multiple copies of this shape simply rotating and scaling as you like until you get a similar or desired effect.

Step 7
Un-hide your origional shapes layer and select the layer transparancy again. Now on the same layer hit your arrow keys a few times to the right to move your selection until a thin line is left. press the delete key to remove the rest of the shape leaving you with only the line.

Step 8
Using the same CTRL + T, for transform method as above do the same copy/pasting/resizing with the lines until they line up similar to the previous shapes you duplicated.

Step 9
Now go in with a Low opacity Eraser tool and brush over the lines fading them into the background. set all the line layers Blending modes to color dodge and lower the opacity as you see fit.

Step 10
You should have something similar to above. Here we have simply used the Color Dodge tool to add some intensity to the middle area of the rays

Step 11
Press CTRL + A to select the entire canvas. Now press CTRL + SHIFT + C or your photoshop shortcut default for copy merged. This will copy a merged version of the image to the clipboard even though your elements are on different layers. Press CTRL + N for a new document or file >> new and paste the copied image. Now you can work with the document on a single layer which is handy for color dodging.

Now that we have the new document, on your images layer right click and go to blending options. We are going to apply an inner shadow to the entire image like above creating a 'vignetting' type effect intensifying the image with black edging.

Step 12
You should now have something similar to above! enjoy !

Also check out the star tutorial extending what you have created from this tutorial at bright stars tutorial