Photoshop Neon Effect

This is a first for me so please leave a comment let me know what you think.



Open a new document 500px by 500px



Fill it with a dark gray background color #252525



This should work with any font style. I am using Arial 48pt color #ff0000. Type the word “neon” in all capital letters. Then duplicate the layer.



On they layer copy we are going to add two layer styles. Double click in the blank area to the right on the copy layer to bring up the layer styles dialogue box, and select the “outer glow” layer style.





Double click the color select box to change the color of the outer glow, color #fd6d74, and click ok. In the layer styles dialogue make sure the setting are as following;
Blend Mode: Screen
Opacity: 100%
Noise: 0%
Spread: 0%
Size: 6px

Change the contour mode to “cone”



Range: 70%
Jitter: 0%

Select ok.

The next layer style we are going to add is an “inner glow”. Change the color to match the outer glow
# fd6d74. Then make sure the settings are as follows;
Blend Mode: Screen
Opacity: 100%
Noise: 0%
Choke: 35%
Size: 2px
Change the contour again to the “cone” style
Range: 50%
Jitter: 0%



Select OK.

For the final touch we are going to add an overall glow to the new neon sign. Select the original text layer which should be just below our copy that we added layer styles to. Then from the menu under Filters>Blur>Gaussian Blur. You will be prompted to rasterize the type select ok. Then set the blur radius to 20px.




The finished product!




Just some playing around to show it to you with different font. When you use different font you may have to adjust some of the settings, but the same basic idea applies, add inner glow, outer glow and blur the layer just below.

Adobe Illustrator Scribble tool

I was out looking for a unique tutorial to follow to improve my skills in Adobe Illustrator. I came across this one at Vectips. I personally love the scribble effect. Super easy to do.

Photoshop Filter & Effects Play

Being the rookie I am I decided to take the most common advice from the masters. Just play with the different tools Photoshop has to offer. I came up with a desktop background for myself, the idea was to give the appearance of metal letters melting into the fire below. Let me know if you how you think it came out. I am proud because its mine but need some critiques.

If people actually like it enough I would be willing to do a tutorial. Thanks :)

Add a Favicon to Blogger

Before I decided to enter in to the world of digital media, I was like many other internet surfers looking around for whatever it is I was after that day. One thing that always drew my attention to a site and gave it extra cool points was the favicon. What’s a favicon? It’s the little icon in the upper left of the address bar of your web browser, it also displays in your bookmarks next to the site name. Don't ask me why I am so drawn to this little detail, I just am. So needless to say when I started this website putting one up was a priority. In order to make this a reality you need a graphic you want to use as a favicon and a piece of code I will give to you.



First the image editor of your choice (I used Photoshop) make the image size 16 x 16 pixes and save as a PNG. Now your image is the correct size to be a favicon, you will need to convert it to a (.ico) file.

There a couple of ways to do this. You can download this plug-in for Photoshop that will allow you to save as a (.ico) or you can you use this website and upload your (.png) and they will convert it for you. Once it is converted save it and upload to your image hosting service, or you can be lazy (like me) right click the converted image click save image url then paste it into where it says “your url” in the code.

Add this piece of code (minus the two dashes on either end) between your head tags.
<--link href='your url' rel='shortcut icon' type='image/x-icon'/-->

Bam! Instant cool points now you can sit back and enjoy.

Last, credit to my help because I didn’t figure this out all on my own.
Check out this sweet video tutorial at Tutvid and this article.

Messy Label

So as always I am doing another tutorial in hopes of expanding my skills. This time I did this one I found on PSD Tuts

The object was to create a wrinkled looking label. Leave a comment let me know how you think I did. Mine is the top one the finished example is below.

CSS Kung-Fu

I came across this sweet display of CSS coding skills and just had to share.
Courtesy of Subcide

This is rendering of of the Twitter Fail Whale made entirely of CSS.



Inspiring!!!

Photoshop Digitizing

Anyone that is learning something new is just an imitator before they become a creator, the same applies to here in the Lab.

You can follow the same tutorial I used to "digitize" my little princess HERE

The real value of this tutorial for me was not just learning how to create the effect it was learning about the brushes panel. I had never opened it or adjusted its settings before. Now that it is there in the future I will be able to make tweaks to my brushes to try to create my own effects.

DIGITAL DAUGHTER