Photography Basics – Special Effects Filters – Part 2 Star Filters
by Mickey Rountree
One special effects filter that is difficult or at least very tedious to duplicate in Photoshop is the star filter. Star filters can add a ray or star burst effect to small specular highlights. They are clear glass etched with a cross hatched pattern, a hexagonal pattern or an octagonal pattern. This etching gives the filter its other name or cross screen filter. In practice the star filer can be overwhelming if there are a lot of lights in the image. Also the star filter’s etched lines degrade the image and can cause a diffused or soft focus effect.
In the film days all we could do was put the filter on, shoot and hope for the best. Today I would have my camera securely on a tripod, shoot one shot with the filter and one without. That way you’re covered whether you like the star effects or the plain shot. If you like the stars, but the rest of the image is too degraded, open the two shots as layers in Photoshop and mask everything but the stars in the filtered shot and you have the best of both; an overall sharp image, but starry highlights.
If there are only a few lights in an image, you can use a star brush in Photoshop to paint in the stars. Search for “Photoshop free star brushes” and you will find lots to choose from. Also at one time Topaz Labs had a plugin to add stars. It’s no longer available or supported, but some of you may still have a copy.
When these articles are converted to PDF and sized for the newsletter, the resolution and quality of the images is seriously degraded. If you would like to read the article and see the images as I did, you can see this article on my website at this link.
https://mickeyrountree.smugmug.com/Articles/Basic-Photography-Series/
Four Point Star or cross screen Filter. This is a clear filter with a 90 degree crosshatch patter engraved into it. This produces a four point star. In this close up it also produces some diffraction or prism effect, but generally it isn’t noticeable in smaller points of light.
