How do you create the effect in photoshop to make shapes appear to shoot out from the center of an image, a bit like light rays.
Radial blur with zoom seems to blur both out from the center and towards to the center (the effect you would see if you were moving in relation to an object). This is close but ultimately isn't the effect i'm after
(attached image of the radial blur effect:)
Use Free Transform (ctrl+t on pc). Set the transform centerpoint to the radial blur centerpoint, hold down shift to keep proportions and alt to resize all four sides at the same time, and drag the start of the blur to match the object.
If you're worried about lowering the render quality while scaling bigger you could do the radial blur with bigger resolution in a different file, but scaling blurs is relatively safe qualitywise.
Heres a screenie:
Here's an interesting fact, radial blur has a different effect depend on where on the page the object is that you are using the filter on. This is because it is based form the center, and works in a circular way, hence: radial blur.
Also, out of curiosity, the attached image is or is not what you are going for?
I would think the clever use of layers and masks would resolve this. Just add the blur effect on a different layer and mask out the parts you don't want. It will probably take a bit of trial and error to get the exact effect you want, but the Radial Blur tool is a fairly blunt instrument.
