Tutorial: Neon Glow

Written by devvv (08 May 2007 08:37 PM)

In this simple tutorial I'm gonna show you how to create a cool neon glow text in only 5 very simple steps!

1. Create an empty file: 500x180 px. Choose black as background color. Choose the text-tool and write "neon text" in a size of 80. Move the text to the middle. Then do Layer / Layer to Picture size.
   
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2. Take the brush tool, choose a hard brush of a size of 13, now draw connections between the letters as seen on the picture. It doesn't have to be too exactly... We need these connections because neon text is always connected.
   
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3. Now go to Filter / Blur / Gaussian blur: 15px.
   After that choose (GIMP 2.2: Layer ) / Colors / Curves and select ALPHA in the top left corner as channel. Now move the bottom left point to the center, the to right one move to the left also to the center.
   
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4. - Filter / Alpha to Logo / Neon and enter these values:
   
   Effect size: 40
   Background color: black
   Glow color: choose any cool color you like
   
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5. Now we're just adding a bit more glow to the text. You should have a layer named "Neon Tubes" and another named "Neon Glow" now. Activate the Glow layer and duplicate it. On the duplicate apply a Gaussian Blur: 35px. If you still don't have enough glow (like me ;)) just duplicate the layer again!
   
   The whole thing could look like this:
   
   Have fun!
   
   click to enlarge

This work is licensed under the following license: Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 2.0 Austria.