You can create emanating light in both Fractual Design Painter and Adobe Photoshop. It is easier to do it in Painter, but the effect created in Painter is quite "standard." In PhotoShop there are more variations. This write-up covers techniques in both.

The following picture is an example generated in PhotoShop.

Add your desired color on the canvas by the Paint Bucket Tool. A light color is recommended. Then apply Filter/Add Noise. Use Uniform Distribution and set the amount to about the middle.

Apply Filter/Polar Coordinate. Use Retengular to Polar.

Apply Filter/Spherize. Set the amount to -100. Repeat the same step several times until the center circle becomes a vanishing point.

Crop the picture and adjust the color by altering various settings such as level, brightness/contrast under Image. There is no right or wrong way. Just try out different settings.

Apply Filter/Render/Lighting Effect. Again, there is no right or wrong setting. Experiment with it.

Apply Filter/Blur/Gaussian Blur. Set a small radius.

The following picture is created in a similar fashion except that the center spot is highlighted with the use of lens flare filter.