Photoshop Quick Tips #11: Creating Glow LinesListThumbs
Photoshop Quick Tips #11: Creating Glow Lines
Today I am going to show the basics of how to create a glow line, very easy but very useful. A lot of people have been using glow lines on their illustrations and it's really good to see a well worked piece with some good glow lines taking over, so let's learn.
First things first, open a new file on Photoshop, and put a black background.
Get the Pen Tool (P) with these settings:
And create your line the way you want. (If you never used the Pen Tool before would be good to check some videos tutorials here )
As you see I created my line, and every thing that you create using the Pen Tool appear on the Path Palette (if you don't see the Path Palette go Window > Paths), and will be saved kind of like layer as you can see above.
Now that we have our line/work path we are going to create another layer, go to Brush Tool (B) and select an small brush (I used 9 px soft round). It's time for the magic, go on the Path Palette and right click the work path you have for the line you made, and select Stroke Path. A new little window will pop up, select Brush and check Simulate Pressure.
This will make the brush that you have selected to go over the line that we have, this is the main detail of this tutorial, if you have a bigger brush the line will be thicker and so on, whatever color you have selected will also be showing.
And this is the result you should have so far.
Now that you already know how to make your lines you can use Layer > Layer Styles > Color Overlay to give the color you want to your line and to make it glow a little bit we will duplicate the layer and on the bottom one we will apply Filter > Blur > Gaussian Blur (just enough to give it a little glow, I used 6.0 on mine) You can also give a different color to the layer with the blur so it creates a cool glow effect.
And this is what you should get:
Now that you know the basics, use your creativity to make your glow lines shine on your illustrations.
Thank you,
Download .psd file
About the author
Hi! I'm Paulo Canabarro and I'm here to post some really cool stuff for you, if you have any ideas or any requests please get @ me - pvpcanabarro@gmail.com you can also Follow me on twitter!
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40 Comments
quick tips thanks
Easy n' simple, i like it lol
well i loved it fhanks
It's not that glowing imo ...
You have ways to get a much brighter result. Like adding a Brightness/Contrast layer on top of it, setting brightness and contrast to 100% and brushing away some parts of that layer ...
That is also a very quick tip.
Adding a background image and playing with your layer styles can also give you an even better result ...
a lot of thanks i really like this tut
Do you need to have a tablet to get the simulate pressure to work? I can't seem to get the same effect.
Nice :D
Is the font you used free? Which one is it?
Why duplicate the layer and do Gaussian Blur? Why not just use Outer Glow? Same result but it's editable and no duplicate layers.
This is just one of those silly errors, but this is the 11th quick tip not the 10th :P
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Regards
sry, but the final result is not good.. the tip would be better without the final illustration.
nice tut! Thanx
I like the ferquency youre publishing the quick tips at the moment! keep that good work up!
Love the tip. But, when you do the stroke over the line how do you get the edges like that?... thined out that.
Cause when i do it the ends are always rounded
Thanks for this, I was thinking about working this into something in the future, so it's good to know how to do it. :)
@Kevin Oh! - No, the pressure is an effect applied when you right click the path and apply stroke path you have the option of checking simulate pressure on the stroke path that what makes it look like that, you can see the screen shots on the tuto.
@Phenotype - That works too, I'm just used to do it the other way because sometimes i use motion blur.
@photon92 yeh it's called MOD and you can get it here http://www.behance.net/gallery/MODa/208831
@PhatBoi914 - same thing I told @kevin
you see...............................nice:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/eggchandrika/3619018264/
cool =)
http://s53.radikal.ru/i140/0906/16/edbfbb630f0e.jpg
This is a very cool effect! Thanks for sharing this with us! I am totally going to use this on my next project I have in mind.
Very nice tip. This an effect that many people like, but many don't know how to do it.
Although I would also use Outer Glow because is editable and gives a better control.
But if I wanted to use Gaussian Blur I would convert the layer to a Smart Object so that the Blur would be editable.
As for the "thined out" edges, only checking the 'Simulate Pressure' box isn't enough. You also have to enable 'Shape Dynamics' in the Brush settings (Window > Brushes) and under the Shape Dynamics settings choose 'Pen Pressure' in the first 'Control' drop down box.
It seems some people don't need to do this, as their brushes are set to do this by defect for some reason. Don't know if it's a version thing or not (I use CS4 and I have that problem), but I've seen this before.
And if you change the brush size through the preset thumbnails (which I do alot) you have to enable it all over again, since it's technically a different brush.
This is very frustating specially if you're using a tablet, since pressure sensitivity is something you expect to get from a tablet by defect, without having to change settings in the brush.
Also, instead of going to the Paths pallete, you can simply right click the path (with the Pen or the Direct Selection Tool) and you will have the Stroke Path option right there.
:)
cool......................... :)
http://www.flickr.com/photos/eggchandrika/3618528211/
Tks!!!!
Great Tuto !!!
Easy, fast
Thanks for the tut paul but you did miss a step. Tiago, you solved everyone's problems with that, works perfectly now.
I like duplicating and erasing parts on one of the layers, and putting it on hard light mode, so it looks a little more "natural"
And always rasterizing the layer effects (merging with an empty layer) so it doesn't get that weird "photoshopped" look so i can play with the blending modes...
Making another layer of that line, blurring it and adding overlay might give you a even sharper glow look (if I'm remembering right 9_9...)
I'm not able to do the tutorial as it says.
I'm using Photoshop CS2, when I selects the path, "Stroke menu" comes disabled...
thanks,very cool,easy but perfect.
Cheers for this. So simple but really effective.
not bad at all, dude. But, as I've been working with this kind of things for a while, I'd assure you would get far better results using two different layers, blurring the bottom one and using some good color dodge. Actually color dodge is the key for everything glowing XD.
but maybe it's just me.
keep up the good work! ^^
Muito bom e bastante fácil esse tutorial, valeu mesmo. O bom do site é que além do ótimo conteúdo eu também posso treinar o meu inglês.
Abraço.
i know how to make paths already and stroke it also but i donno how to stimulate the pressure when i checked the box also didnt work : But tiago solved my problem : Thanks Tiago
Tiago, a lot of thanks!
Without your comment I would not receive the necessary result
It's so easy.. tks man
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Think about Sports betting and change Your life. Nice post
Regards
easier than i thought it would be. thanx!
hoho...
that's easy.
COOL!
Oh ! Very nice ! And really easy ! I love it :)
Thank you so much Tiago, for clearing up the Simulate Pressure issue! :D I was having trouble with it too.
Thank you.
very easy , and here is my job : http://www.upload.ee/image/261866/bioglow.jpg
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