Starburst Glints of Light

1. First thing we need to do is create a new document. I set my background to black to that I can see the white glint that we will prepare.

Create a new layer and choose the line tool (Hidden under the rectangle shape tool in the toolbox)

Choose 2 pixels and the draw pixel option from the options bar

2. Set white as your foreground color and draw a short dash (A) Hold the Shift key to constrain the rotation to a horizontal line

Choose Filter>Blur>Motion Blur as shown in (B). Add enough distance to get a nice tapered look. Make sure the angle matches the angle of the line.

3. Duplicate the Layer with the dash on it

Press Ctrl (Windows) /Cmd (Mac) +T for free transform

Rotate the dash while holding down shift to constrain the rotation

4. Choose both dash Layers and press Ctrl/Cmd+E to merge them (On version CS and earlier, choose the top layer and press Ctrl/Cmd+E to merge with the layer beneath) Careful not to merge with background

Duplicate the merged dash layer (Ctrl/Cmd+J)

Press Ctrl/Cmd+T for free transform Rotate 45 deg, grab a corner point and scale toward the center to make the new star smaller (hold down alt/option+shift to scale from center and constrain)

5. You now have your starburst and you may be happy right here. For those of you who want to add a lens flare to the starburst continue...

Create a new Layer

Grab the elliptical marquee tool (circular selection tool)

Create a selection over the starburst

6. Choose Edit>Stroke

Choose a 1 pixel white stroke

Deselect

Choose Filter>Blue>Gaussian Blur to soften the effect

Click ok and we're all done!

7. Merge the layers together to use on your illustrations and photos.

Note: You can save them as a smart object in Photoshop CS2 and CS3.

Another option is to make a custom brush: Flatten the whole thing, choose Ctrl/Cmd+I to inverse and then make a selection around the starburst. Choose Edit>Define Custom Brush.

Enjoy.

Done!