In this tutorial, I will show you the processes I used to make a shining, colourful Computer Case in Photoshop. You can apply the same technique to pretty much any object you like.

We will explore the use of various tools such as dodge/burn tools, brush tool, image transform tool, blur filters and more.

A lot of my friends are computer fanatics and they love putting all sort of fancy gadgets on their computer to make it look cool. Sometimes I saw they have some shinning fans or heat-sinkers lighting up from inside the PC Case – that’s where I got the inspiration from for this tutorial!

Below is a preview of the final image:

Let’s get started and light up your PC case – In Photoshop :)

Step 1

Find an computer case image on the web or take a photo of your own computer case. I used the image below for this tutorial, you can use it if you like:

Step 2

Create a new document, size doesn’t really matter, i chose 800×600px. Press Shift + F5 to fill the background layer with black colour.

Load the case image you just downloaded into Photoshop and outline the case (using any selection tool you feel comfortable with, but I would suggest you do some practice with the Pen tool), then copy and paste it onto the newly created document, name the layer as “case”

Step 3

Use the sponge tool to kill some colour and lighting, because this way it’s easy to add some of colour of our own later on. Detailed setting see below:

After that, you a big circle brush with overlay mode enable, set the opacity and flow to around 30 percent, gently brush the surface of the case.

Step 4

It looks a bit bored with just case standing there, so we can add some reflection for it. Firstly duplicated the “case” layer once, name it “reflection”, put it under the “case” layer, use the flip vertical tool to flip it, and apply a gradient overlay blending to it. Tip: you can hold down left mouse button to move the gradient overlay until achieving desired effect.

Detailed setting see below:

Flip image vertically

Layer Blending Mode

Gradient Overlay

Step 5

Duplicate the “case” layer twice, than apply radial blur filter on the first one, and motion blur on the second one. Apply relevant layer blending options to each of the two layers.

Detailed settings see below:

Radial blur Setting:

Radial layer blending option:

Motion blur setting:

Motion Blur layer blending option:

Step 6

Create a new layer on top of all previous layers and set its blending option to color dodge, name the layer “cloud” and render cloud using white as foreground colour and black for background colour.

Detailed Blending setting see below:

This is the effect so far, yours may not be exactly the same.

Step 7

Create a new layer called “light and colour”, set the layer blending style to colour dodge. Now use a combination of the brush tool, dodge tool, sponge tool to add some lighting and colours! This is fun part of this tutorial and there is really no limit to what type of tool you use to create the effect.

I have the following result image:

That’s it for this tutorial. As usual I left room for you to maximise your own creativity. Remember, you can always try different blending options, apply different filters on the image.

Below is a the final work of mine, I added some extra lighting and adjust the hue and colour balance a bit:

Hope you enjoy this tutorial, any commnet or feedback just drop me a line! Thanks~

Till next time, have a great day!