Advanced Glow Effects

In this tutorial, we're going to create some really sharp-looking glow effects using a combination of layer styles, the Pen Tool and Color Blending. The end effect is quite stunning and hopefully you'll pick up some tips you didn't know before.

Step 1:

As with pretty much every tutorial I've ever written, we begin with a radial gradient. This one is pretty harsh and goes from a reddish brown color to black. Here are the exact color codes:

Foreground color - #922f00
Background color - #000000

Step 2:

In this tutorial, we actually need a pretty intense center, so what we'll do is duplicate the layer we just made and set the one above to a blending mode of Color Dodge. There are a few types of blending modes, darkening ones, lightening ones, colorizing ones and inverting ones. Color Dodge is probably the strongest of the lightening ones. As you can see in the screenshot, it produces a pretty full-on center.

Step 3:

Now in our glow effect, it helps to have a nice textured background. So we are going to create a sort of smoky haze. To do this, create a new layer, then make sure you have white, #ffffff, and black, #000000, selected as your background and foreground colors.

Then go to Filter > Render > Clouds. This will give you the same random cloud pattern as above.

Step 4:

Now set the opacity of your layer to Overlay and 30% transparency. In some instances this would be enough, but for our needs we want it even smokier looking!

So go to Filter > Sketch > Chrome and use default settings of 4 and 7 for detail and smoothness respectively. Actually you can probably mess around with those if you want, but the defaults seem to be fine.

When you're done, the result should look a lot smokier (once its overlayed at 30% transparency that is). You can see the result in the background of the next screenshot.

Step 5:

Now before we can start making glows, we need to have something to glow. Here's where we break out the pen tool. If you have used the pen tool much I suggest playing around with it a little. There are some tricky things you can do with shortcuts, but for this tutorial you don't need those.

In fact all we want to achieve are some nice curves. Fortunately this isn't too hard. I find the trick is not to use too many points. Instead rely on the Pen Tool's natural curving and drag the mouse out for each point so you get a big angle. In this S-curve shown above, I've only used three points, the starting point, the end point and one in between to give it the bend.

Step 6:

Once you have a nice curve, create a new layer. Then click on the Paintbrush Tool (B) and choose a very thin, hard brush. As you know, soft brushes are the blurry ones and hard brushes are more solid. In this case I suggest using a thickness of 3.

Note that you can have any color selected as your brush color because we'll go over it with a layer style shortly.

Step 7:

Now switch back to the Pen Tool. You must switch tools in order to do this next bit.

Then right-click and select Stroke Path. A little dialog box will appear as in the screenshot. Choose Brush and make sure there is a tick next to Simulate Pressure. This is important as it will give your curve tapered ends which will make it rock!

Next right click again and select Delete Path.

Step 8:

You should now have something like the above. Just a thin, cool swishy thing.

Step 9:

Now we add some glows. The easiest way to make our glows is to use layer styles. And the best way to tell you what layer styles to use is to tell you to download the sample Photoshop PSD from the bottom of this page and then open it up and look through them there.

In a nutshell, I've added two sets of glows. To do this I first use Outer Glow and then because I want a second glow, I change the Drop Shadow settings so that it becomes a glow (you can do this by reducing the Distance and changing the blend mode to something like Color Dodge)

Oh and also I've used a Color Overlay to make the item white so that its like the center of an intense glow.

Step 10:

So now you have the same line but with a cool glow coming off it. The beauty of using a layer style is that you can copy and paste it to other layers. To do this you just right-click the layer and select Copy Layer Style then create a new layer and right-click and choose Paste Layer Style.

Step 11:

So now repeat the same process a couple of times to make more squiggly lines.

In this instance, I made one a little thicker by changing the paint brush size before I did the Stroke Path bit of the process. I also made a third line and erased part of it and sorta made it join the other two to look like a cool triangular shape.

Step 12:

Here I've added some text in and applied the same layer style to the text layers.

It's important to pay lots of care and attention to your text. When you're first starting out, use simple fonts and play with spacing between letters, words and sizes. You can achieve a lot with just some small tricks. Here I've contrasted the three words by making Glow a lot larger and in regular casing, then made Advanced and FX much smaller, with greater space between the letters and all caps.

You can control spacing with text using the Character window. If it isn't already open go to Window > Character and it should appear. Mess about with the different settings until you learn what each controls.

Step 13:

Now we add some particles. To do this, create a new layer then select a tiny paint brush - size 3 - and just paint some dots on. It helps if they are clustered towards the center of the glow so that it looks like they are emanating from there.

You can make some of the central ones larger by doubling over on them with a second paint brush dab.

Then paste our Glow layer style on to that layer too!

Step 14:

Now that's looking pretty cool, but it will look even cooler if we give it some subtle coloring instead of this super gaudy red.

So create a new layer, and using a radial gradient, draw a blue to white gradient as shown.

Step 15:

Then set that layer to a blending mode of Color and change the opacity to 50%.

You'll see that it turns the image kind of bluish. I think that's looking much cooler already, but just to go that extra step I also created a couple of extra layers, one with some faint yellow and one with faint purple. You can see them in the screenshot above.

I set each layer to blending mode of Color and thin opacities so that they all fade together.

Step 16:

And there you have it: advanced glow effects with a cool color blend and subtle smoky background combined make for a pretty great effect.

Just remember to experiment with settings and try applying the glow to different things to see how it turns out. And try different color combinations, some surprising combinations turn out really beautiful. Good luck!

In this tutorial we learn some original Photoshop techniques through the creation of a CD cover. Some useful methods of enhancing workflow and efficiency are shown like using smart objects. The image we are creating will be in the style of some of the Ministry of Sound CD’s. We will explore a creative use of the displace filter in order to distort some of the image.

The image that we will create will be in the style of some of the Ministry of Sound CD’s, we will try and mimic one particular image by Jeremy Somers which can be found here.

Step 1

Start by creating a new document with dimensions; 912×912px, feel free to use a different size but you may need to use different settings later on in the tutorial if you do. Fill the background black by hitting D to set default colors then hitting Alt+Backspace to fill the layer with the foreground color. Now for the text shown below we are going to create each word in a different layer as this will give use more flexibility. Hit T to select the text tool the click where you want the first word to begin and type it in capital letters in white. Highlight the text then go Window>Character to bring up the character editor. Here you can mess around with your text to get it looking similar to the image below. For the font I used Helvetica but other sans serif fonts like Arial will work also, make sure you decrease the character spacing and also alter the size to suit. DO the same with the other two words and arrange them like so.

Step 2

Select all the text layers in the layers panel then right click and select convert to smart object, if you’ve never used smart objects before then now is a good time to read up on them. By converting this to a smart object we can work on it as if it a single layer but have the layers within it still fully editable by double clicking on the smart object’s thumbnail. With the smart object selected, click on the layer mask button in the layers panel. We are going to hide parts of this text using splatter brushes, if you don’t have any splatter brushes then you can download loads for free here. Select the layer mask and with black as the foreground color and a splatter brush selected click on the image. Use splatters of different sizes and opacity until you have something that looks like the image below.

Step 3

Create a new layer then convert this also to a smart object. Now go Filter>Render>Clouds then Filter>Blur>Gaussian Blur and use a radius of 20px. Now you will notice that since we converted this to a smart object we can now go back and edit the values of the filters we used by double clicking on them. It is a good habit to get into to convert anything to a smart object that you are going to add a filter to. Add a clipping mask between this smart object and the text smart object by holding Alt and clicking between them.

Step 4

Now add a levels adjustment layer and also a hue/saturation adjustment layer and make sure both of these are clipped like the clouds layer.

Step 5

Create a new layer and set the foreground color to white. Select the line tool then using weights between 1px and 4px draw lines at 45° by holding shift. Make sure that you have something that resembles the image below. Hide all the other layers except this one and the background now go File>Save As and save the file as something like dmap.psd. You can now unhide all the other layers then delete the one with the lines in it.

Step 6

Select the text smart object then go Filter>Distort>Displace, use the default settings then hit OK and choose the file you saved in the last step (dmap.psd).

Step 7

Select the brush tool then hit F5 to open the brush editor, now mimic the settings shown below.

Step 8

Create a new layer then use the eyedropper tool on part of the text to get a color. Use this color and the brush you made in the last step to draw bubbles coming from the text like so. Do this a few times around the letters then change the opacity of this layer to 50%.

Step 9

Below I’ve shown what mine looked like at this point, you’ll notice that I’ve added a few extra details like the floral designs, feel free to use any brushes you already have to add details like these.

Step 10

Create a new layer then using the line tool draw some thick lines at 45° in different shades of gray like in the image below. You’ll notice that I hid all the other layers just to make it easier to see. Now would also be a good time to organize your layers into groups.

Step 11

Grab the smudge tool and use a large soft brush to smudge some of these lines, use the image below as a reference.

Step 12

First convert this to a smart object then in the same way as we did with the text in step 2, add a mask to this layer then use some splatter brushes to hide parts of the line.

Step 13

Add a displace filter to this layer using the settings shown below and the same map as before.

Step 14

Create a new layer above this layer then using the brush tool with a soft brush, brush some bright colors onto the layer like in the image below.

Step 15

Create a clipping mask between the color layer and the smart object with the lines in it. Put these two layers within a group then move the group to directly above the background layer if it isn’t already there, lastly unhide all the other layers.

Step 16

Using the same brush as we did in step 8, draw some more bubbles in a new layer, make these ones slightly larger than before.

Step 17

Double click on this layer to bring up the layer style panel then add an inner bevel using the settings shown below.

Step 18

We are going to use the same technique as in step 14 and 15 to color these bubbles so first create a new layer then brush on some bright colors.

Step 19

Next just create a clipping mask between the color layer and the bubbles layer.

Step 20

I thought it would be a good idea to show how smart objects can be used effectively to increase the efficiency of your workflow and also leave layers fully editable. First find the smart object which contains the text then double click on the thumnail next to it. A new document should open with a transparent background and the white text on it. Since the text is quite hard to see create a new layer, move it to the bottom of the layer stack then fill it black.

Step 21

Create a new layer at the top of the layer stack then using the ellipse tool, draw a white ellipse over the letter O like shown below. Here you can also add some more text in like I did. Feel free to add some more elements in at this point.

Step 22

Now hit Ctrl+S to save the document, you have to do this or the changes will be disregarded, then hit Ctrl+W to close the document. When you back to the other document you will notice that the changes you made have updated this image.

Step 23

The last thing I did was to put in a logo in the top left and I was finished. Below I’ve shown what my layer stack looked like.