Create the Sunburst effect in Photoshop

When you’re shooting towards the sun, you can achieve some fantastic sunburst effects. The easiest way of capturing the sunburst effect in-camera is by using a narrow aperture, but in certain circumstances you’ll need to use faster shutter speeds to capture action so choose a larger aperture and forego the sunburst effect. In this tutorial Michael Topham shows you how to add the sunburst effect in Photoshop by saving a sunburst shape as a brush using the Define Brush Preset command.

If you fancy trying this technique yourself, download the starburst shapes below and give them a whirl with the landscape start image that’s used in the tutorial.