Webforumz Newsletter - November 2007
Tutorials
Neon Lights In Photoshop
I'm going to show you how to add cool neon effects to your images. As an example we will be transforming this rather dull looking pub into our own singing and dancing bar! (Image 1)
Step 1
Firstly I want to remove the crane that seems to have made it way into our picture.
To do this, select the Clone Brush (S). Set the brush size to about 45, and then select a sample of the blue sky nearby the crane; to do this hold Alt and click to make your selection.
Once you've got a sample of the image, drag the bush over the crane and it will be covered by your sample. Cover the entire crane. You may have to make a second sample to keep it as sky. (Image2)
Step 2
We will be adding various neon lights to our image to brighten it up a bit. The first will be across the roof; select the Path tool (P), and ensure Paths is selected.
With this selected draw a Path along the rooftop. In my image I have highlighted the path red; this is just so you can see where to draw. On your screens the path will be shown by a 1px line. Press Ctrl and click to end one section and start another.
Make a new layer and call it "Roof Neons". With this layer selected – in the Layers palette choose the Paths tab and click on your path that you have just created.
Now we're going to make our neon lights; follow these steps:
- Click the Brush tool (B), select the brush with soft edges and change the size to 30px, and the opacity to 20%
- Change your selected colour to a dark red, something like #de0000
- Right click on your path in the Layers palette and choose "Stroke Path"
- A pop-up box will appear, make sure the tool selected is Brush and click OK
Now we are going to repeat these steps, each time changing the colour, size and opacity of the brush. Repeat steps 1-4 with the following settings:
- Brush Size = 25, Opacity = 25%, Colour = Brighter red (#ff0000)
- Brush Size = 18, Opacity = 35%, Colour = Move the slider slightly towards white
- Brush Size = 12, Opacity = 45%, Colour = Move the slider slightly more towards white
- Brush Size = 6, Opacity = 55%, Colour = White
Now delete the path from the Layers palette. What you should be left with is a neon effect across the rooftops as in the picture below:
We can now perform a similar effect on text, shapes, more paths; the choice really is yours. Just choose your colour, start with a dark colour, big brush and low opacity and work towards a white, small brush and big opacity!
A quick tip: to convert text into a path, use the Type tool to create your text. Then choose Layer > Type > Create Work Path. You can then delete the type layer and you will have a Path to work with!
In the example below I have added some text, and a shape and an underline on the text which was made just by drawing another path.
