1. Open the image you’re editing or make a new file. The example shown here uses an RGB 300 x 100 with a black background.
2. Draw the lines in the position you want the lightning to be. Use a 1px paintbrush.
3. Use the ‘Wind’ filter. Filter > Stylize > Wind. Select the method as ‘Wind’ and the direction ‘From the left’. Now repeat except change the direction to ‘From the right’
4. Rotate the image 90 degrees. Click Image > Rotate Canvas > 90° CW. Repeat the previous step and rotate it 90° CCW.
5. Move to Filter > Distort > Ripple, set the amount to 100%, and hit “OK”.
6. Go to “Image > Adjustments > Hue/Saturation or press Ctrl + U”. At the bottom right corner, hit “Colorize”. Now adjust the “Hue” bar and the “Saturation” bar until you get a color you like.

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1. Open a color image in Photoshop. To get the best sketch image, high contrast images are preferable. If it’s needed, you can adjust the image’s contrast (Image>Adjust>Brightness/Contrast).

2. Desaturate the layer that contains the image. You can desaturate by clicking on Image>Adjust>Desaturate.

3. Duplicate the desaturated layer. On the layer palette, you can duplicate the layer by right clicking on the previous layer and selecting the option of duplicating that layer.

4. Note that there should now be at least two layers: two desaturated layers, and depending on which version of Photoshop you’re using, you may have a blank background layer.

5. Select and invert the duplicate desaturated layer. You can invert an image by clicking on Image>Adjust>Invert.

6. Notice that now, with the inverted layer selected, change the blending mode to “color dodge.” The image will turn all white with few black spots on it.

7. Set the Gaussian blur to this layer. You can do that by clicking on Filter>Blur>Gaussian Blur. Then you can set the radius in between 3.0-10.0. Choose the one that creates a nice sketch effect.

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Thanks to wikiHow for this article, which is under a creative commons license.