Find out how lens flare can be used.

1. Open your image. Mine is a moody sunset picture.

2. The first thing to do is brighten the picture a little and give it more zip. Choose Image > Adjustments > Hue/Saturation. Move the Hue slider to –33 and the Saturation slider to +40. Click on OK and you’ll end up with a more vivid image, like this one.

3. Choose Filter > Render > Lens Flare to produce the dialog box shown in the image below.

4. You can choose to imitate the lens flare typically produced by four different types of lenses, a 50–300mm zoom, as well as 35mm and 105mm prime (single focal length) lenses. The fourth choice was new to Photoshop CS: Movie Prime, which duplicates the flare effect of many motion picture camera lenses.
Start off by selecting the 105mm prime lens. You can also adjust the amount of flare by moving the Brightness slider, and drag the cross hairs shown in the preview window around to precisely position the center of the flare.

5. Click on OK to apply the flare. You can see all the effects in the images below.

Photoshop’s 105mm Lens Flare filter inserts a
setting sun into the photograph.

The 35mm Lens Flare

The 50–300 Zoom Lens Flare produces a spectacular effect.

Note:Experiment with different brightness settings to achieve different effects. You can also apply the lens flare only to a selected portion of your image to keep the glare from obscuring some parts of the image.