Every single day someone, somewhere, posts a new free set of custom brushes for Photoshop. And then e-mails me about it, hoping I'll write about it in DesignGeek. (Why do they seek promotion of a free product? Besides just getting the word out, probably because their site has Google Ads, so increased traffic = potentially more AdSense revenue for the site owner. Completely understandable.)

I seldom have time to check out the links they send me, let alone write them up. But this brush set I came across on my own, and it's really fun!

Obsidian Dawn's Light Beams Brush Set
http://www.brushes.obsidiandawn.com/sets/light-beams.htm

After opening a medium-to-dark image, making your foreground color white, and choosing one of the 26 light beam brushes from the Brushes palette, just click on the image. Ta-da, it looks like a beam of light is cascading into your subject. Each click of the brush (don't drag) creates another beam. As with all her brushes, they work on Mac or Windows, in Photoshop v7 or later and in Photoshop Elements.

Stephanie wrote up some usage tips for the light beams brushes here:
http://obsidiandawn.com/blog/2008/02/13/light-swirls-photoshop-brushes/

And instructions on installing brush sets:
http://www.brushes.obsidiandawn.com/tutorials/installing/index.htm

Stephanie has many other free brush sets you can download from her Obsidian Dawn site. I encourage you to visit and browse around. And if a Google Ad on her site looks intriguing, click on it! She'll earn a buck or two.

(But … keep in mind that Google puts the ads there based on keyword context — the site owner has no control over it. So don't be surprised if you end up at the page I did after clicking one of her Google ads, another "Brushes" link: http://www.torringtonbrushes.com/).

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