Advanced Glow

Hi,

I was looking for tutorials on internet, but I havn't found the things that i want... so I decide to make my own tuts site. Why not? Oh, by the way, Fogolin here, it can sound strange, but it's that.

Today i decide to make an effect that gave me a lot of work to learn how to do: Advanced Glow. Many people just put an "outer glow" effect, selecting the layer, but it doesn't look to much good, like this:

Whell, first, the text doesn't have nothing to do, its merely illustrative, I don't mame apology about alcohol... And secondly, I do not put values in tutorials, so you can adjust the best for your project. Following:

1- At first, create an image (here I used a 1280x800 one), and put in this a dark background, but its extremely important that it be colorful, if the opposite the effect'll not act correctly.

2- Double click in the background layer that you've create, so go to "layer style" window, "overlapping gradient" and create a gradient with opacity slightly reduced, and not centralized, create it were it will be the most part of the brightness concentration.

3- Now create a selection area with the "lasso tool", so click in the "filter" tab> "render"> "clouds". It will fill the selected area with a distorted mass of ash, black and white. For this step enter "d"in your keyboard, to return the selected colors to black and white, just like when you open the Photoshop.

Your image should have this kind of fog after you've used the "erase tool" to erase with smooth the edges, making the image stay more uniform. After done so, enter "ctrl+u" to load the "hue/saturation" box. There click to select the option "colorize", so give some color to this mist. Or, you can do an doble click on the mist layer and use the "color overlay". The effect is not the same, but as this layer will be underneath the other layers is not so important how is it colored. I'm using patterns of blue, but you can do the way you like.

4- Create with the "pen tool" some white vector drawings. so use the "gaussian blur" (in "filter" tab) with a radius considerable. Following use "shift+ctrl+x" (liquify filter). It will open a window with the selected layer. There you have a lot of tools to distort your image, until it becomes like a flame. I had used three layers of flame (picture below), using the same process. Once its done, you can put a bit of "gaussian blur" and use the "smudge tool", to make small adjustments. Aply a soft color using "ctrl+u" (hue/saturation).
Done this you'll see that looks rather large. Enter "ctrl+t" to resize the layer, and double click on it when it's in the ideal size. What we can do now is use a mask to create a gradient efect on the flame borders, so it was not uniform and follow the pattern of the background, which already has a gradient.

5- Next step is the TEXT. This gave to me a lot of work to discover how to do. Well, following... Write a text with some letter that might overlap another. Here I've used two "O"s. Choose a color to be the brightness of this letters. As I'm working with shades of blue, I've chose a realy light blue, next to white, but with tone enough to make it clear that it's blue:

(text without letters brilliant)

(Appears the first letter brilliant - wich will overlap the another one -, in light shade of blue)

(This is the second one, look at the dark detail, is it who will give an illusion of a shadow from the first "O" to the second)

6-Given this, duplicate this layers and let them ivisible for now. Place the copies one on the other so that dark created in the second "O" looks like a shadow of the first. With the first selected, type "ctrl+e" to merge the copies, making them one. This facilitates the next steps. Duplicate this new layer and let it , well, invisible.
Select the copy and follow this path: "filter"> "blur"> "gaussian blur", and use a small radius, only to give an impression of brightness light. Until now it looks like "outer glow" of layer style box, didn't it? Let's change that. In the blend mode box, right below of "layers" title tab, change from "normal" to "overlay".

(Image with only one of two "blured" layers)

The letters will almost disappear. But is this. Duplicate the layer "blured" and let them under the normal "O"s. Now duplicate the normal "O"s layer and make the same type of thing, but instead of leaving the blend mode as "overlay" you shoud leave it as "color dodge", and let it over the normal "O"s. Now it seems more like glow.

7- Is it taking shape, but to have an effect of movement, framed by flames in the background, we'll "dissolve" the two "O"s. To do this select the "paintbrush tool", click with the right button of the mouse and select a tip of brush that has an effect granules. Then go to " brushes" tab, and adjust the values to create a dispersion. So select the same color that you've used in the letters and do a small extension in a new layer, just like if it's undoing himself. Use the "erase tool" to make some adjustments.

Done this, bring this layer to under the first "blured 'O's" layer, so do a double click on it. In the layer style box, go to "color overlay", and place a strong tone of the color in use. Then go to "outer glow", and do an similar glow effect, like you has done with the layers.
Now your project would be like this:

8- Looking at the general plan this looks good, but still does not have much brightnes. Remember that in the begin I taught you how to create a mist? Well, now you must create a mist taking the kernel of all: of the flames, of the gradient and above the "O"s. After created, enter "ctrl+u" and add some color, so change the blend mode to "color dodge".