Sun shining effect

Dear Photoshop experts,
I have an object on a given layer, and I wish to make it appear as if it had
a sun within it, or behind it, shining brightly and sending rays of light
all around
How would you do that ?
Thank you
Jean-Marie

 

If the object has no fill around it on the layer, you could start trying
it with Outer Glow in the Layer Style Menu. Gradients can make effects
like that too. Or maybe Filter>Render Lighting Effects.
But it really depends on the situation what I'd use.

How about a link to a screen shot?

 

There are a lot of things you could do.

You could try playing around with a duplicte layer. Inverse it (so
dark colors go to light) and then change the transparancy mode to
screen.

Go into mask mode and apply the clouds effect. Then threshold, then
exit mask mode so that you have the clouds now as a selection. Now try
messing with zoom blur to get the ray effect.

That's what I would try, but that's just out of my head so it may not
get you the effect you're after. It might actually really suck... but
that's where I would start anyway. If you find a cool method, post
back and let us know... links would be nice as well.