'Bout time I post this here.

---

Ok, first, you want to start by opening up a blank canvas. For the sake of this tutorial, I'm making it a simple 100x100



Next, you want to fill it in with the color of your choice. I would strongly suggest blacks or grays. Usually anything dark, so the lightning really stands out.



Ok, now we're going to start with the lightning. Get your pencil tool and select white as the color. You want to draw a white, squiggly line from one side of the canvas to another. Feel free to split the lightning bolt into two, add a little section straying off from the lightning, whatever. We want to be wild, but not so wild it's just scribbling. You should now have something like this.



Next, we have to add color. This, though easy, is the longest step. Choose a color of moderate brightness. Blues, reds, greens, etc work well, but things like pink, teal, and gray do not. Now carefully outline the bolt in your choice of color, but only the flat sides of the lightning bolt. Do no put color on the corners. If you do, you will get a more pixelated look which we do not want. Compare these images here.

Corners colored:


Corners not colored:


Though it's harder to tell in this example, you can still see how the first one has a more blockly look which is bad. Lightning should be jagged, but not pixelated. So there you have it, a lightning bolt. Now you can go on to even cooler effects like attactching it to objects. Letters are common, so we'll use one. Just add a letter A to your canvas. Make it large and a different color.



Now, make a white bolt from one side of the canvas and have it connect to the letter somewhere. Then, outline it in the color you used last time. If you use different colors, they don't match and it throws off the entire look of the image. There, now you should have something like this.



The final step would be making a lighting bolt that doesn't connect to the sides at all. So, make your white line leading from one part of the A and ending at another. Then, outline it again as we've been doing. The important part is that you start and end at the very edge of the A. Don't begin in the middle of the A, otherwise it'll look like it's overlapping it instead of touching it. You should have something like this now.



This can be a very useful effect to add to images to add flare and attract peoples' attention. If you do this effect correctly, you can make a very cool image. Here is an example of how the lightning effect can be harnessed to add life to a signiture.