Hey, this is Marty from Blue Lightning TV. I'm going to show you how to quickly create the look of a neon sign.
I provided this image of a brick wall that you can download,
as well as the font I'm using.
Feel free to use whatever font you like. Just make sure it s a relatively thick font.
Their links are in my video's description or project files.
Before we begin, if you want to know as soon as I upload new Photoshop tutorials,
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Open your Horizontal Type Tool. If your foreground and background colors aren't black and White
respectively, press "D" on your keyboard. We'll invert the colors by pressing "x' or
by clicking this icon. White should be our foreground color so we cand see it easily
on the brick wall. Open your Type Picker and pick a font. I'll make its size 544 points
based on the font I'm using and the number of characters in my text. Once you type out
your text, feel free to adjust its size. Make the aliasing Smooth and center alignment.
Click on your document and type out your text. To center it, open your Move Tool and press
Ctrl or Cmd + A to select your document and click the Align Horizontal Centers icon
and the Align Vertical Centers icon. Then, deselect it by pressing Ctrl or Cmd + D.
For this example, t's skew our text. To do this, press Ctrl or Cmd + T to open our Transform Tool and
go to the middle of one of the sides of the bounding box. Press and hold Ctrl + Alt +
Shift on Windows or Cmd + Option + Shift on a Mac as you drag it up or down to an angle you like.
Then, press Enter or Return. Ctrl-click or Cmd-click the large "T" of the text layer
to select our text's shape. Go to Select and Save Selection. Click OK and press Ctrl or
Cmd + D to deselect it. Next, we'll darken the brick wall background. Make the background
active and click the Adjustment Layer icon. Click "Levels".
In the white output field, type in 91. Make your text layer active and right-click or secondary-click and empty area
of the layer to open the fly-out list. Click "Rasterize Type". Ctrl-click or Cmd-click
the thumbnail of your text to select your text's shape. Go to Select, Modify, and Contract.
Contract it 20 pixels. Then, click OK or press Enter or Return. Go back to Select, Modify,
and Smooth. Smooth it 10 pixels. Press the "Delete" key on your keyboard to delete everything
inside the selection. Then, deselect it. Double-click an empty area of your text layer to open its Layer
Style window. Click Color Overlay and the color box. In the hexadecimal field, I'll
type in 6EAAFB, however, feel free to pick another color that has similar color saturation
and brightness. The Blend Mode is Normal and the opacity is 100%. Click Outer Glow and
the color box. I'll type in 1176FF, but if you're using a different color, pick a color
richer and darker than the one you picked earlier. The Blend Mode is Normal, the Opacity
is 100%, and the Noise is 0. The Technique is Softer, the Spread is 0, and the Size is
20 pixels. The Contour is linear and the Range is 50%. Click Drop Shadow. The color is black,
the Blend Mode is Multiply, and the Opacity is 100%. The Angle is 120 degrees, the Distance
is 15 pixels, the Spread is 0, and the Size is 20 pixels.
Ctrl or Cmd-click the thumbnail of the text to select its shape.
Go to Select, Modify, and Contract. Contract it 6 pixels.
Go back to Select, Modify, and Feather. Feather it 2 pixels.
We'll fill it with white, but before we do, make a new layer.
Since our foreground color is white, press Alt or Option Then, deselect it.
We'll convert our text into a Smart Object, so we can add
a blur to it overall. To do this, Shift-click the "Neon Tubes" layer to make it active as
well and click the icon at the upper, right of the Layers panel. Click "Convert to Smart Object".
Go to Filter, Blur, and Gaussian Blur. Blur it 1 pixel.
Next, we'll create a glow on the wall. We'll make a new layer below the active layer by Ctrl or Cmd-clicking
the New Layer icon. Ctrl or Cmd-click the thumbnail of the neon text to select its shape.
Go to Select, Modify, and Feather. Feather it 20 pixels. Click the foreground color.
I'll type in 4CA9FF, which is close to the color of my neon tubes. Fill the selection
with the color by pressing Alt or Option + Delete. Then, deselect it.
Make a new layer under the active layer and open your Channels panel. If you don't see it, go to Window and
Channels. Ctrl or Cmd-click the thumbnail of Alpha 1 to select its shape and open back
the Layers panel. Go to Select. In versions earlier than CC 2015.5, click Refine Edge.
In later versions, click Select and Mask.
Feather it 200 pixels and shift the edge 20%.
Output it to a selection.
Fill it with the foreground color and deselect it.
Change its Blend Mode to Vivid Light and make a copy of it. Change its Blend Mode to Color Dodge
and reduce its opacity to 50%.
This is Marty from Blue Lightning TV. Thanks for watching.