Web Development: Advanced Glow Effects

Advanced Glow Effects

Final product image — What You'll Be Creating

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.

Create more awesome glow effects with Layer Styles from Envato Market.

Follow along with us over on our Envato Tuts+ YouTube channel:

1. How to Create the Background

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, and 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.

Now give the clouds a blur by going to Filter > Blur > Gaussian Blur. Set it to 20.

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 > Filter Gallery > Sketch > Chrome and use default settings of 4 and 7 for the 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.

2. How to Create Glowing Lines

Step 1

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 the S-curve shown below, I've only used three points: the starting point, the end point, and one in between to give it the bend.

Step 2

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 5.

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

Step 3

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 4

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

Step 5

Now we add some glows. The easiest way to make our glows is to use layer styles.

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 it's like the center of an intense glow.

Step 6

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, and then create a new layer and right-click and choose Paste Layer Style.

Step 7

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 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.

3. How to Add Glowing Text

Step 1

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 sizes and the spacing between letters and words. 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 2

Now we add some particles. To do this, create a New Layer and 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 as if they are emanating from there.

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

Then paste our Glow Layer Style onto that layer too!

4. How to Add the Final Details

Step 1

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 2

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 3

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

Just remember to experiment with the 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!

Premium Layer Styles From Envato Market

Short on time? Create this effect even faster with premium layer styles from Envato Market. Check out some of our favorites below!

5 Fire and Glow Layer Styles

Make your typography burst into a fiery glow with this pack of Photoshop layer styles. This pack includes five awesome glow styles featuring different intensities and colors. Add a fiery element to your designs with just the click of a button!

Gif Animated Luminance Photoshop Action

Love glow effects and want to take them even further? Check out this amazing Photoshop action. Not only does it create this engaging Photoshop glow effect, it creates an animated gif too! Click the link to check it out in motion.

Radiant Photoshop Action

This non-destructive Photoshop action is user-friendly and an easy way to experiment with even more glow-inspired Photoshop effects. Use it to add implied motion or to bring a little magic to your favorite photos.

Lightum - Light Effects Photoshop Action

Now this is a Photoshop glow effect. Check out these amazing lights! It has ten different color presets to choose from, and the content is fully editable. It’s easy to jump in and start creating amazing effects. And if you get stuck? There’s a help file for that, too.

Glow in the Dark Photoshop Actions

We’ve created Photoshop glow effects and looked at some cool ones too, but how about glowing in the dark? These glow-in-the-dark Photoshop effects are really easy to use, and they could be an interesting combination with what we learned in this tutorial. Give it a shot!