› › COLUMN> PHOTOSHOP USER>^ APRIL 2020[ 94 ]
everything in view. Note: It’s import-
ant for the effect that you don’t
change the aspect ratio of the circle,
or the end result will have an odd
smeary effect.Step Five: Before clicking OK, click
the Preview checkbox to make sure
you like the look. The blur will go
in both directions, and will reduce
the brightness of everything a little.
That’s okay; we’ll fix it soon! Click OK
in the Options Bar. If you’re working
on a high-resolution image (say, a
straight RAW conversion), the filter
will take a little bit of time to render.Step Six: Duplicate the blurred result layer, and then press Command-T (PC:
Ctrl-T) to call up Free Transform. You should have the rotation reference point in
the middle of your bounding box; if not, under the Photoshop (PC: Edit) menu,
go to Preferences>Tools and check the box for Show Reference Point when
Using Transform. Once you have the reference point, drag it to the intersection
of the guides. It won’t snap like the Spin Blur target, so you may have to zoom in
for precise placement. Get as close as possible to ensure the trails align properly.
In the Options Bar, set the rotation angle to 0.2°. Yes...two-tenths of a degree.
The reason this is so low is to get good overlap with the blur we just created and
prevent any visual “stuttering” or gaps. Click the checkmark in the Options Bar
or press Enter to commit the transformation.
Now that we have our initial blur and transform, it’s time to add a little old-
school repetition. Duplicate the layer as we did before, and then press Com-
mand-Shift-T (PC: Ctrl-Shift-T) to apply the last rotation (the duplicate layer you
created should be selected automatically). Repeat this duplicate/transform step
again to create as many copies as you’d like. The more copies, the longer the
trails. For this example, I created 20 copies.Step Seven: Once you have all of your copies, click on the first duplicate star
field layer, then Shift-click on the topmost star field layer, and convert them
to a single smart object (go to Filter>Convert for Smart Filters, or Right-click
on the selected layers and choose Convert to Smart Object). You should be
left with the smart object layer, your unblurred star field, the Curves layer, and
your starting photo (Layer 0, in my example).
Now select the smart object layer and go to Layer>Smart Objects>Stack
Mode>Maximum. After a few seconds, Photoshop completes its analysis and
returns a rendered result.
Notice the layer stack icon on the right of the smart object layer. This indicates
that a stack mode is being used and, if you c lick the disclosure triangle to the
right, you’ll see which mode is active (see next page). In order to change modes,
you have to go back through the Layer>Smart Objects>Stack Mode menu. We
don’t have to worry about that for this effect, though.