Life Beam

Step 1.

Open up a new document that is 250 x 450.

Set your foreground color to: #000000, and your background color to: #042600

Fill the background with a gradient like so:

Step 2.

Next create a new layer, set your foreground color to white (#FFFFFF), select the brush tool, set your brush size to 175, round with a 0% hardness.

and create a dot near the bottom center of the canvas

Step 3.

Next we'll apply a new color adjustment. Do this by going to "layer->new layer adjustment->color balance".

This will open up the box bellow, change the mode to "color":

And apply these settings:

Make sure you check the Highlight box

Here's how your image should look after this:

Step 4.

Next create a new layer directly above the layer with the "dot" we'd made in step 2.

Notice it is Bellow the "color balance" layer.

Set your foreground color to white (#FFFFFF).

Once again, get the brush out, and apply these settings: Size 30, 0% hardness:

Now just draw a straight line from the center of our dot to the top of the canvas. If you hold down the SHIFT key while doing this, the line will be perfectly straight:

Step 5.

Now create a new layer. You should still have the brush tool selected. If not get it back out. Set the size to 225 this time, and place another dot on top of the layer with the line we just drew.

Step 6.

Select the smudge tool

and apply these settings:

Starting from the outside, drag inwards on your large dot from the top inwards. This will take lots of clicking and dragging:

Step 7.

Next hold start dragging in and out on the large dot with the smudge tool still, until you get a similar effect:

Step 8.

Now get out the eraser tool with these settings:

And just start clicking around the parameter of the dot until you get something you're happy with:

Step 9.

Create a new layer, get the brush tool back out, set the foreground color to white (#FFFFFF) and make a few more dots on the beam like so:

Step 10.

Whip out the smudge tool again, and merge it into the beam. This is done just like we did above, by clicking and dragging in, and clicking and dragging out.

Work with it until you're satisfied:

Step 11.

Next get the brush tool out again, and set the size to 3 pixels and set the brush up like this:

Now start at the dot, and make two passes up the stem of the beam until you get a similar look:

Step 12.

Next duplicate this layer, and apply a slight Gaussian blur to it (filter->blur->Gaussian blur). I used 1.5

You can continue to draw lines onto the piece, do whatever you think looks good. Here's how mine ended up:

and here's one with a 3d render added, and some other little tech effects

Thanks for reading, have fun, and explore there are tons of things you can do with this effect.