Looking for a way to give some extra “life” to a logo or type treatment? The two most common techniques to help a logo standout are a glowing edge or a drop shadow. This is based on the principle of type on pattern, which says that a contrasting edge makes it far easier to see something when it is positioned over a busy or moving background. But why be ordinary? By backlighting an image, we can dramatically offset it from its background. This technique works with almost any logo or type treatment.
1.Position the logo.
Position the logo where you want it on screen. Be sure to use a safe title area document if you are working in video. Use alignment tools to center the logo if needed.
Note: You can open a new document with title safe and action safe guides showing. Choose File > New, and then choose a preset video document that matches the standard used by your video editing system.
2.Duplicate the logo layer.
Make a copy of the logo by duplicating the layer: choose Layer > Duplicate Layer. Name the duplicate layer Light 1. Place the copy above the original logo.
3.Blast it!
Apply the Radial Blur on the duplicate layer (Filter > Blur > Radial Blur). Set the amount to 100, the Blur Method to Zoom, and the Quality to Good. Click OK.
4.Fill it.
Load the default colors by pressing D. Load the layer named Light 1 by Cmd + clicking (Mac OS) or Ctrl + clicking (Windows) its thumbnail in the layers palette. Fill the selection by pressing Option + Delete (Mac OS) or Alt + Delete (Windows). Deselect the layer by choosing Select > Deselect.
5.Extend it.
Repeat the blur/load/fill cycle until your rays are the desired length. You can run the last filter again choosing Filter > Radial Blur (the top menu item), this applies the last filter with its last previously used values. In the example (which is for a video) I repeated the cycle three times to achieve my look. Depending on the resolution of your composition you may need to run the combination more or less times.
6.Color it.
On the blurred layer named Light 1, apply the Color Overlay layer style by choosing Layer > Layer Style > Color Overlay. Select the desired color and adjust opacity to taste. You should get a real-time preview of your work if the Preview box is checked. Click OK.
7.Build it.
Move the glow layer, light1, behind the logo by dragging it below the logo layer in the Layers palette—so the beams shoot past. You may choose to place a background image behind the logo. Optionally, you may also choose to place an additional copy of the beam layer on top. Adjust the opacity to make the color look like it has wrapped around the logo.
8.Composite it (optional).
If you want to key the image in a video application you will need to create an alpha channel to store the transparency of the glow:
Turn off the visibility icon for all layers that you don’t want included in the alpha channel. Then make a new (empty) layer and make sure it is selected.
Choose Merge Visible from the Layer’s palette submenu while holding down Option (Mac OS) or Alt (Windows). The resulting layer contains all of the merged elements while leaving the originals behind. Cmd + click (Mac OS) or Ctrl + click (Windows) this new layer’s thumbnail to load the selection, and then turn this layer’s visibility icon off.
Switch to the channel’s palette and click on the Save Selection as Channel icon at the bottom of the palette. Once the alpha channel is created, you can release the selection by choosing Select > Deselect.
In the Layers palette, turn the background layer on and fill it with the same color as your glow. This will ensure that you have clean edges in your alpha channel by avoiding any stray color data in the glowing areas.
Be sure that you have only one alpha channel in your document. Then choose File > Save As and save a copy of the file in a format your NLE system recognizes such as PICT or TARGA. Make certain that the Save Alpha Channels box is checked so the alpha channel will be embedded.
About Me
In this technique, I’d like to show you how I use scanned images or paint with artistic brushes to creatively crop photographs. Warning: This technique is addictive. After using this technique a few times, you might get bored with rectangular photographs.
1.Scan a high contrast image.
You can use any image that contains primarily black and white (and not many shades in between). One way of making such an image is to spill ink onto watercolor paper and then scan it. But for my example, I used a large brush, dipped it in black ink and then painted on watercolor paper to create the image. Once the ink was completely dry, I scanned it as a grayscale image. As an alternative, you can paint with one of the creative brushes that appears at the bottom of the brushes palette in a grayscale document instead of scanning an image (although I think it turns out much better with scanned images).
2.Add a layer mask.
Now we need to prepare the image we’d like to crop. So, open any photograph you’d like to use, double-click on the Background Layer to change its name and then choose Layer > Add Layer Mask > Reveal All. The layer should now have two preview thumbnails in the Layers palette. The one on the right is the Layer Mask you just created.
3.Paste the image into mask.
Now let’s get our scanned image into that Layer Mask. Open the scanned or painted image, choose Select > All and then Edit > Copy. Switch to the image you’d like to crop, Option-click (Mac), or Alt-click (Windows) the Layer Mask preview image in the Layers palette to make it fill the main screen and then choose Edit > Paste. If the pasted image is overly large or small compared to the document you pasted it into, then you’ll want to choose Edit > Free Transform and pull on the corners to scale the image.
4.Invert the mask.
In a Layer Mask, black causes areas of the layer to become hidden and white causes areas to show up, which means that what we have now would hide the majority of our photo. So, choose Image > Adjustments > Invert to make the image a negative, which should cause the layer to only be hidden on the edges.
5.Adjust the mask.
Next, lets make sure the primary areas of this image are pure black and pure white, otherwise you’ll be able to see through the image in the middle (grays=semi-transparent). To do that, choose Image > Adjustments > Levels and pull in the upper left and upper right sliders until the middle of the scan is solid white and the edge of the image is solid black.
6.View the result.
Now to see how all this has affected your image, Option-click (Mac), or Alt-click (Windows) on the Layer Mask preview image in the Layers palette to hide the mask and show your image. It should be cropped so that it only shows up within the shape of the ink that was in our scan.
7.Create texture.
I think we could make it look even more interesting by adding texture to the photograph. Since the last thing we copied was the scan of that paint, you should be able to just choose Edit > Paste to get a new layer that contains the original scan. If you ended up scaling the image the first time you pasted it in, then you can choose Edit > Transform > Again to scale this version the same amount. After doing that, choose Filter > Stylize > Emboss, use the default settings, and click ok.
8.Apply texture.
Now to apply the texture that the Emboss filter pulled out of the image, change the blending mode menu at the top of the Layers palette from Normal to Hard Light and then choose Layer > Create Clipping Mask. If that doesn’t add enough texture, then try choosing Filter > Texture > Texturizer to the layer you embossed.
9.Spice it up a bit.
If you’re still hungry for more effects, then click on the layer that contains the photo (not the texture) and experiment with the choices found in the Layer > Styles menu (I like Drop Shadow and Bevel and Emboss).
All it takes is about an hour of free time and a quick visit to the art supply store to create literally dozens of creative crop shapes. You don’t have to be an artist, heck, just spill paint on the paper—it will look more interesting than a rectangular crop job. I can barely draw a stick man and look what I came up with. And since the Photoshop creative brushes can be used as a substitute for all those art supplies, your possibilities are truly endless.