Affiliates

o0Hubba0o @ good tuts submitted this
The new forums are up!!! Please register there, post and have fun, once I'm done organizing them the tutorials should start rolling again. NEW FORUMS!

This thread is closed any questions can be ask in the new thread at those forums, thank you for your support.

Here's the original project I did where I came up with this, and the finished product from this tutorial:






First things first, the settings I used such as color,size, opacity/times in animation are just what I used. I encourage everyone to expirement and use your own ideas for your project. There are many differnt ways to go about this project, this only the first way that I discovered on my own and had to share.


This tutorial will be written out with the assumption you know how to resize an image and most of the basics of photoshop. If you need to know how to resize an image visit my tutorial on it here. (Re-sizing/cropping tut still under construction, sorry)

Background Image

1. First you're going to need an image, for my project I'm using an image of Vash at a size of 500 x 150. I would recommend a dark image like mine for this, otherwise the results might not come out to good.


I also decided to go with a purple neon, so if you want a different color do that at this point. Bring up the Hue/Saturation {ctrl+u} editer and select your color. For mine I pushed saturation all the way up since it's a pretty dark picture, and choose 270 as my hue.



2. After cropping to the size you need, and getting to the color you would like rename this layer to "Background off", now duplicate your layer {ctr+J}.


3. Now the top layer should be selected, if not make sure it is and go to filter/stylize/glowing edges, here's the settings I used:


Now rename the second layer with the glowing edges to "Background On".


Text/Border

1. Ok, we're going to leave those two layers for now and proceed to the text/border. The font I used is...well "Neon", you can get the font here: NEON Font. I used a size of 55pt in this example. For the text color I used the eyedropper and clicked one of the brightest purple spots on the duplicate layer with the glowing edges.

2. Grab the text {T} tool and write whatever you want.


Also for the border this is not the only way to make one, you can also use a 3 pixel brush or pencil tool for it also. This way though the border is more likely to come out even.
3. Now for the border Create a new layer {Shift+Ctrl+N} and grab the rectangle marquee tool {M}. For mine the border is smaller by 5 pixels on each side, so it's a size of 490 x 140. So for the marquee choose fixed style and set it to the proper dimensions for your border, mine looks like this:


Now click on the new layer with the marquee tool selected and use the arrow keys to center it.


4. Ok, your foreground color should still be set at the color you used for your text, so grab the paint bucket tool {G} and fill the selection you just made with that color.


5. You should now have a colored box slightly smaller than the image and it should still be selected. So go to Select/Modiy/Contract... and choose 3 pixels. (the reason I went 3 is because that's about the width of my text and you want the border the same width.)

6. Now your selection should be a little smaller than the colord box, hit delete. It should leave you with a 3 pixel border, now grab the move tool {V} and select the text layer and move it so it lines up with the border.


7. Now grab the eraser tool {E} and select a pixel size of 5 or close to it, and erase the border below the text like so:
Before: After:

8. Now select the text layer and rasterize it by either going to Layer/Rasterize/Type or right click on the layer and choose rasterize. Now select the border layer and merge it down onto the text layer. {Ctrl+E} And now duplicate the layer.{Ctrl+J}

9. Select the bottem text/border layer, rename it "Neon Off", and go to Layer/Layer Style/Blending Options and give the layer these options:

• 1. Bevel And Emboss... with these settings:
  
  
  
• 2. Color overlay with the color: 545454j

10. Now select the top text/border layer, rename it "Neon On", layer and give it these settings:

• 1. Bevel And Emboss... With the same settings as above
  
• 2. Outer Glow... with the same color as the text and border, size of 3.

Animation

*Notes/additions: Before continuing make sure the layers are in this order starting at the top:

Neon text/border
Non-Neon text/border
Neon Background
Non-Neon Background


1. Obviously the first step here is to switch over to Imageready. {Ctrl+Shift+M}

2. First you'll want to set the opacity on the "neon on" layer and the background image with the glowing to zero, (make sure they are on top of the other two layers) and duplicate the frame 11 times.


3. The following is a list of the time to set each frame to and the opacity for the two neon layers on each frame, the two glowing neon layers will have the same opacity as each other for each frame. And for each frame you have to set the opacity for both layers.
The opacity settings is right here:

• Frame 1: 0% - 1.5 sec
• Frame 2: 35% - 0 sec
• Frame 3: 0% - 0.5 sec
• Frame 4: 65% - 0 sec
• Frame 5: 0% - 0 sec
• Frame 6: 100% - 0.2 sec
• Frame 7: 75% - 0 sec
• Frame 8: 100% - 3 sec
• Frame 9: 65% - 0 sec
• Frame 10: 100% - 1 sec
• Frame 11: 25% - 0 sec
• Frame 12: 55% - 0 sec

4. And tadaa, flickering neon:

I think this is the best tutorial ever but i only have one problem with the animation # 2 steap I did the 12 frames and i put the opacy to what u had writen but when i pree play it doesnt do anything no flickering or any thing can some one help me wiht this?

yyoooo i have the same problem man.. i can't make it "flicker"

Couple things I can think of right off hand to check are make sure you did the opacity settings to the layers with the neon effects. And also make sure the layers are in this order:

Neon text/border
Non-Neon text/border
Neon Background
Non-Neon Background


I'm about to start editing the animation part now to see if I can clarify it a little bit.

I have just one question.Where is a site where you can create a thingy like that?
I'm slow on all of this.

It's not done at a site, you need a program called Photoshop and photoshop comes with imageready wich for doing animations. I think that's what you're asking right?

Here's a thread with some places to get photoshop, it's not cheap, CS or 8.0 is the latest, but 7.0 is just as good in my opinion, some people say it's better too.

Photoshop Downloads

yo dude.. does it also have to b "neon" font? or can it b anything else?

YO NVM DUDE!! THX MAN!! !Lol i diden't c the part b4 the seconds... i diden't c the percent part ahahah my bad.. thx man ur awsUM!!

and dude... wat kinda uploading site do u use?

If you mean for hosting my images I use photobucket.com.

Thanks for the tutorial, I found it great, and I made this image, but instead of using the glowing edges I made the second layer a colour burn, so it looks great!

Thank you so much!

I'm glad you like it, and it's nice to see people experimenting with different techniques on it too.

Hi im new here ive made this neon sign but i was just wondering how you made the background neon 2 diffrent colors

And thank you this has tought me alot

Hmm, do you mean how I got one to be blue the other purple? If so then that's done in the very first step in the first section:

If that's not what you meant then I'm not sure because I didn't do anything else than eadd the glowing edge filter to them. Expirement around abit, you could try a gradient overlay maybe.

no thats not it... the first pic of yours that says moose. in the background its 2 diff colors. i just wanted to know how you did that.

That's the orginal image, all I did was add the filter to it, so there could of been some slight off coloring that showed up after the filter was applied. Mess around with the settings maybe too, but yeah that's all I did was add the filter to the original image.

i need help with animation thingy everything is fine but i dont know how do i add the animation my pic is not moving lol






need help with the animation please

Im all the way up to the last step, the one where i have to change the opacities of the 12 layers. And i cant figure out how to change 'em. How do I?

On the right you should have the layer's pallette, if not on the menus up top go to Window/layers and make sure there's a check next to layers.

The opacity settings is right here:



Click on the background layer and set it, then click on the text/border layer and set it. Then click on the next frame and do the same thing untill they are all set.

Let me know if that helps, if not let me know again where you're at.

can u explain this part lil bit more how do i marge this :/