Neon Text Effect

Quick reference

• 00:04 Hey everyone. Now before I begin, I have to remind you,
• 00:07 the layers styles that I'm about to use work well for the font and size that I
• 00:10 chose to use.
• 00:11 If you use a different font and size, you definitely need to tweak the layer
• 00:14 styles to get the result that you are looking for.
• 00:16 Let's begin, starting off with my font. I downloaded the 'neon 80s'
• 00:20 font from DaFont.com. It's usually the site I go to
• 00:24 when I'm looking for new fonts in terms of size. I'm going to be going big:
• 00:28 250 points. Now I can type out my word of choice.
• 00:33 Once your text is typed out,
• 00:36 let's dive into the layer styles starting with a gradient overlay.
• 00:39 Before editing the actual color of the gradient, change the style to ‘reflected,’
• 00:44 and the scale to 50% - now we can edit the colors.
• 00:48 The far left color will be a nice light blue:
• 00:52 I can use EA f7 FF F for the
• 00:55 value. And then on the right side,
• 00:58 it's going to be a slightly darker blue: a1 ca f8.
• 01:02 Good, and that's all for the gradient. Of course, if you want a
• 01:08 different colored neon text, you can change the colors accordingly.
• 01:11 Now, to give your texts some depth, let's add bevel
• 01:15 and emboss. Starting at the top, turn the depth to 150%,
• 01:20 and the size to 10 pixels. Moving down to shading,
• 01:25 we have a lot of changes: start by turning off global light
• 01:28 and set both the angle and the altitude at 90 degrees.
• 01:32 For the gloss contour, I found the ‘ring contour’ gave a really nice result.
• 01:37 You also want to make sure to turn on anti-alias whenever that option is available,
• 01:41 to make sure the edges of your texts are nice and smooth.
• 01:44 Now as for the highlight mode, you really don't have to worry about any of these
• 01:47 options,
• 01:48 because our altitude was set at ninety degrees and these options really won’t affect
• 01:52 us.
• 01:52 The shadow, on the other hand, is a very different story.
• 01:55 Change the blend mode to color burn and the opacity to 100%.
• 02:01 Now, we're going to use a nice dark blue for the color -
• 02:04 I'll use 00 2b 57.
• 02:09 Good. At this point, things are still looking pretty flat.
• 02:13 Go ahead and activate the contour option on the left.
• 02:16 There are a few contours that will add some additional depth to our text,
• 02:20 but I found that the rounded steps contour works quite well
• 02:23 with the range of 100%. And finally, I want to add a texture to
• 02:28 our bevel.
• 02:29 This will give our text a slight glass feel to it.
• 02:32 For the pattern, I'm going to be using the ‘haring bone’ pattern.
• 02:36 If you don't see this pattern, click on the arrow at top right hand corner,
• 02:40 the ‘pattern picker,’ choose patterns, and then click
• 02:44 append. For the other options, I set my scale at 50%
• 02:49 and my depth at 5%. We only want a very subtle texture.
• 02:53 Next, to lighten up the edges a little bit,
• 02:56 let's add an inner shadow, which is actually going to be an inner highlight.
• 03:00 Set your blend mode to overlay, with your opacity at 100%,
• 03:05 and then change your color to appear white. Now, down below,
• 03:10 decrease your distance to 0, increase the choke to 10
• 03:14 and the size to 20. Two more to go, we're almost finished.
• 03:18 To pull our text slightly away from our background,
• 03:21 let's add a drop shadow. Start by sending opacity to 15%.
• 03:26 When that's done, turn off global light and set the angle
• 03:30 at 90 degrees. Now set your distance at 6
• 03:34 and your size at 4. Good. And finally, we need to add a
• 03:39 glow. Let's add an outer glow. Starting with the blend mode, depending on the
• 03:43 background that you use, you may need to try a few different options,
• 03:47 but for most backgrounds, linear dodge should work quite well
• 03:50 As for the color, I can use a baby blue:
• 03:53 6f B9 fb,
• 03:56 with an opacity of 100%. Under elements, to create a soft glow,
• 04:02 crank up the size to 170 pixels.
• 04:06 Now, down under quality, I'm going to use the ‘gaussian contour’
• 04:10 with a range of 60%. And that should do it.
• 04:14 Neon text created only with layer styles. Of course, if you want a different color than
• 04:19 neon text,
• 04:20 just go back and change the blues to a green or purple or yellow.
• 04:23 It’s up to you.

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