The Lighting Effects filter lets you produce myriad lighting effects on RGB images. You can also use textures from grayscale files (called bump maps) to produce 3D‑like effects and save your own styles for use in other images.
Note:
The Lighting Effects filter works only on 8-bit RGB images in Photoshop. You must have a supported video card to use Lighting Effects. For more information, see this FAQ.
Quickly master the dedicated Lighting Effects workspace. This tutorial from Dan Moughamian gives you a step-by-step tour.
Also, see this Lighting Effects overview video by Matt Kloskowski.
Spot
Casts an elliptical beam of light. The line in the preview window defines the light direction and angle, and the handles define the edges of the ellipse.
Use the Presets menu in the Lighting Effects workspace to choose from 17 light styles. You can also create your own presets by adding lights to the Default setting. The Lighting Effects filter requires at least one light source. Only one light can be edited at a time, but all added lights are used to create the effect.
Circle Of Light
Four spotlights. White has full (100) intensity and a concentrated (8) focus. Yellow has strong intensity (88) and a concentrated focus (3). Red has medium (50) intensity and a concentrated (0) focus. Blue has full (100) intensity and medium (25) focus.
Five Lights Down/Five Lights Up
Five white spotlights, down or up, of full (100) intensity with a wide (60) focus.
RGB Lights
Red, blue, and green lights that produce a light of medium (60) intensity with a wide (96) focus.
Soft Direct Lights
Two unfocused white and blue directional lights. White has a soft (20) intensity. Blue has a medium (67) intensity.
In the Lighting Effects workspace, the Texture channel lets you control lighting effects using grayscale images (called bump maps). You add bump maps to the image as alpha channels. You can add any grayscale image to your image as an alpha channel, or create an alpha channel and add texture to it. For an embossed text effect, use a channel with white text on a black background, or vice versa.