|
|
|
|
This is a tutorial on Glows. There are 2 step by step tutorials on this page for making each of the glows you see here. They can be used on objects or text. I did these tutorials with Photoshop 4, but I have amended the directions where necessary for Photoshop 5 users. If you have version 4, just ignore the Photoshop 5 stuff and go on to the next step. If you have Photoshop 5, you can just use the layer effects for adding glows, but you may find you get better results and more variation with this method.
Simple Glow
This tutorial is for the
Red Glow, with the red glow.
1. start with a new file, larger than what you will need. These effects always turn out better on large files, and if you need it smaller you can resample it when you are finished. I started with 500 x 200 RGB.
2. choose a color for your text. In this example, the glow and text are the same color
3. Type your text at a large point size. I used 120 points Muriel font.
* Photoshop 5 users: after typing your text, go to the layers palette and right click on the 'T' in the layer you just typed the text in. Click 'render layer' from the menu that appears.
4. Duplicate the layer (layer, duplicate layer )
5. In the layers pallet, click on layer 1 to make it active. Uncheck preserve transparency.
6. apply a gaussian blur. (Filter/ blur/ gaussian blur) for this example I used 6 pixels, you can vary that depending on the width you want the blur to be and the size of the text or object.
7. Duplicate this layer . (click layer, duplicate layer) which will make a copy of the blurred layer and the glow will be darker, but it doesn't look right yet because the edges of the text blend into the glow.
8. With layer 1 copy 2 still selected, change the blending mode to hardlight, and move the opacity slider to 85% as shown in the example below.
9. Experiment with blending modes, opacity levels, etc..different ones with work best with different colors.
Flatten the image, crop it as close to the glow as you can without going into the glow and save it as Jpg or convert to indexed color and save as gif if you prefer.
And now for the white text with the red glow...or the one pictured below.
Repeat steps 1 through 4 above, but for this example I used Futura black at 120 points
5. Make sure preserve transparency is checked and in the layers palette, click on layer 1 copy . fill it with White.
6. In the layers palette click on layer 1, and make sure the preserve transparency is NOT checked. Apply a gaussian blur of 6 pixels (filter /blur/gaussian blur/ 6 pixels.)
7. Duplicate this layer (layer duplicate layer) and apply a gaussian blur of 2 pixels. (Filter blur gaussian blur)
8. drag the opacity slider to 60% as shown in the example below.
9. If you are happy with the result, flatten the image and save it in the format of your choice. You can experiment with the opacity to make the glow darker if you wish.
Back | Home |Tutorials| email | next
