My FIRST Written Tutorial:Glowing Text Typography!

(Click any of the images to see the full size)

First, crack open a 1000×1000 photoshop document with 300ppi (pixels per inch)

Now paint-bucket yourself a nice dark color on the first layer. I picked #06003c.

After That you are going to use the type tool to type whatever you want in white. You can even use whatever font, and font settings you like. I used Myriad Pro and used these font character settings (the character menu is located in Window>Character ):

This was my result:

Then Ctrl-Click the text layer to select it, and create a new layer. I’m calling this layer “color”.

Create another layer on top of “Color” and name it “Gradient”. Then pick a white to transparent gradient and stretch it across the still selected text. When complete, delete the text layer and deselect the selection (Select >Deselect) . You should end up with something like this.

Now Select the Brush tool, and open the Brushes menu (Window>Brushes). Select any brush you like. I chose the 300px Fuzzy Circle.

Select: Shape Dynamics, Scattering, Color Dynamics, Wet Edges, Airbrush , and Smoothing In the brush menu.

be sure to set the correct settings for The first 3 brush options:

Choose a bright color (I chose #ff0000) , then Paint under your text while on the “color” layer . Here is what i ended up with:

Once complete, you can ctrl-click the “gradient” layer to select it. Then Inverse the selection, and press the delete key while on the “color” layer. Here is What it should look like:

Now,  Put the Color layer on top of the Gradient layer, and duplicate it once, to make the color stronger. Then merge the 2 color layers together.

Hold down Shift and select both the “gradient” layer and the “color” layer. Then press ctrl+alt+e to merge the 2 layers into a separate layer.

Gaussian Blur (Fliters>Blur>Gaussian Blur) the “color (merged)” layer to 10px.

And that’s All! It’s really simple really. Now you can get creative and add a background, or change the layer effects to make it look more awesome, but that’s for later.

Here is a nice fill size image of the final result:

Bottom line: ie6 blows, but at least I know how to work with it… (kinda). Expect more awesome soon.

Here is a quick logo i made this morning.

here is the psd to mess with for yourself:
Download

Click here to see the animated gif.

but hey! It is no fool that i will have my portfolio up soon.
ive made many sites, even my older one:

http://sirtopeia.com/

right now it’s a site with an odd java app on it. but soon it will be the home of a cool open source java library to help make simple java apps and games

Finally, there are a few sites i’ve designed, or helped on, that aren’t quite done yet. When they are, i’m going to put them in my portfolio as well as a bunch of other stuff.

for u nubs out there, i’ll be adding sources for various projects i’ve written. maybe they could help you. OR, you could help me, and make my code better!

also, btw i wrote this script today, maybe you should check it out.
http://jakesiegers.com/music-visualizer