How to Create a Glowing, Multi-colored NEON Sign!

I'm going to show you how to create the look of a multi-colored neon sign. This is an update of neon tutorials I've done quite a while ago on earlier versions of Photoshop. Before we begin, I want to let you know that I'll be moving a bit faster for more advanced users. I provided this brick wall background for you can download. Its link is located below in my video's description or project files. Open your Horizontal Type Tool and pick a font. I'm using "Freestyle Script". If you'd like to use it, I provided its link, as well. I'll make its size 200 points, Sharp and Center Alignment. Click the box and pick white, so we can clearly see our text over the background. Type out your text. To adjust the space between 2 characters, click between those characters and press andhold Alt or Option + the left or right arrow key on your keyboard. To reposition your text, open your Move Tool and move it. If you want to angle it, press Ctrl or Cmd + T to open your Transform Tool. Go to a corner and when you see a curved, double-arrow, rotate to an angle you like. Then, press Enter or Return. Ctrl-click or Cmd-click your text layer to make a selection of your text. Go to Select and Save Selection. Name it "text" and click OK or press Enter or Return. Next, we'll rasterize out text, so we can modify it. Go to Layer, Rasterize and Type. Go to Select, Modify and Contract. Contract it 4 pixels. Then, press the Delete key on your keyboard. To deselect it, press Ctrl or Cmd + D.  To apply another element to your sign that youwant as another color, you can either type out text or open a black and white graphic. Clip art works particularly well. If the subject is black on a white background, invert your image by pressing Ctrl or CmdWe want to cut out your subject from its background and place it into our neon document. First, open your Channels panel. If you don't see it, go to Window and Channels. Ctrl-click or Cmd-click the top channel to make a selection of its shape. Open back your Layers panel and drag it onto the tab of your neon document. Without releasing your mouse or pen, drag it down onto your text and release. Open your Transform Tool to resize, position and angle it. If you're using text instead of artwork, rasterize the text as you did earlier. Then, Ctrl-click or Cmd-click the top layer to make a selection of its shape. Go to Select and Save Selection. I'll name it, "Art", but you can name it whatever you like. Go to Select, Modify and Contract. Contract it 4 pixels. Press the "Delete" key on your keyboard and deselect it. Open your Channels panel and Ctrl-click or Cmd-click the text channel to make a selection of its shape. Open back your Layers panel and go to Select, Modify and Expand. Expand it 20 pixels. Press the Delete key on your keyboard to delete the areas of your art that are inside the selection. Then, deselect it. At this point, we now have our basic shapes for the neon tubes. I'll name the top layer, "Art" and the text layer, "Text". Hide the top layer and double-click the text layer to open its Layer Style window. Click "Color Overlay". Click the color box and pick a color for your text that's not too light, nor dark. Whatever color you do pick, write down its hexadecimal code. We'll be referring back to it a bit later. Click "Outer Glow". Click the color box . Slide the picked color straight across until it's a little in from the right edge. Then, click OK. The Blend Mode is Normal, the Opacity is 75%, the Spread is 0% and the Size is 10 pixels. Click "Drop Shadow". The color is black, the Blend Mode is Multiply and the Opacity is 100%. The Angle is 120 degrees, the Distance is 5 pixels and the Size is 7 pixels. Then, click OK. Make a copy of your text by pressing Ctrl or Cmd + J.  Hide the Drop Shadow of the copyand double-click "Outer Glow". Click the color box and in the hexadecimal field, type in the code that you wrote down earlier. Change the Blend Mode to Color Dodge, make the Opacity: 100% and the Size: 100 pixels. To save space in the Layers panel, let's collapse the text effects. Click the New Layer icon to make a new layer. Ctrl-click or Cmd-click either of the text layers to make a selection of its shape. Go to Select, Modify and Contract. Contract it 1 pixel. We'll fill the selection with white and since white is still your foreground color,press Alt or Option + Delete. Then, deselect it. To blend the highlight, change the Blend Mode to "Overlay". Name the highlight layer, "Text Highlight". To save more space, we'll place all of our text layers into a folder. To do this, Shift-click the bottom text layer to make all the text layers active and pressCtrl or Cmd + G. 

 

 Name the folder, "Text". Make the "Art" layer visible and active. Make a copy of itand open your "Text" folder. Go to the "fx" symbol next to the "Text copy"and press and hold Alt or Option as you drag the "fx" symbol onto the "Art copy" layer. Now the "Art" copy" has the "Text copy's" effects. Scroll down a bit to the "Text" layerand this time, go to the "fx" symbol next to the "Text" layerand press and hold "Alt" or "Option" as you drag the "fx" symbol onto the "Art" layer. Now, the "Art" layer has the "Text" layers effects. Collapse the effectsand close the "Text" folder. Make a new layer. I'll name it, "Art Highlight". Ctrl-click or Cmd-click either of the "Art" layers to make a selection of its shape. Go to Select, Modify and Contract. Contract it 1 pixel,fill the selection with white and deselect it. To blend it, change the Blend Mode to "Overlay". We'll place all the "Art" layers into a folder using the same steps that you did earlier. I'll name the folder, "Art". Next, we'll change the color of the Art. If you want to change the color of the text, the method will still be the same. Click the Adjustment layer icon and click "Hue / Saturation". We want to restrict the adjustment layer to effect only the contents of the "Art" folder. To do this, we need to clip it to the "Art" folder. You can either click the "clipping mask" icon or press Ctrl +Alt + G on Windows or Cmd +Option + G on a Mac. Drag the Hue slider to the left and right until you reach a particular color you like. We'll create a new "Art" folder with the Adjustment layer inside it. Make the Background layer activeand make a new layer above it. Name it "Outer Glow" Open your Channels paneland Ctrl-click or Cmd-click the "Text" channel to make a selection of its shape. To add the selection of the "Art" to the existing selection,Press Ctrl or Cmd +Shift as you click the "Art" channel. Open back your Layers panel. Go to Select, and if you're using version CC 2015. 5, click Select and Mask. If you're using an earlier version, click Refine Edge. Feather it 100 pixelsand output it to a Selection.  Then, click OK. If you see this message, just click OK. Fill the selection with white and deselect it. Change the Blend Mode to Overlay. Make a new layerand name it "Medium Glow". Open the "Text" folder and Ctrl-click or Cmd-click either the "Text copy" layer or "Text" layer tomake a selection its shape. Close the folder and open the "Art" folder. Press Ctrl or Cmd + Shift on either the "Art copy" layer or "Art" layer to add its selection. Then, close the "Art" folder. Go to Select and "Save Selection". Name it "Neon Tubes". Go to Select and "Select and Mask" or "Refine Edge" in earlier versions. Feather it 50 pixels and shift the edge 50%. Then, click OK. Change the Blend Mode to Color Dodge. Click the foreground color and pick a brighter version of the color that you picked for your art. Open your Brush Tool and Brush Picker. We'll take care of the size in amoment. Make the Hardness: 0% and the Opacity and Flow: 100%. Then, press Enter or Return. To make your brush bigger or smaller, press the right or left bracket key on your keyboardand brush over your art. Click this icon or press "x" on your keyboard to invert your colors. Click the foreground color and this time, pick a brighter version of the color thatyou picked for your text and brush over your text. If your text color is bleeding too much onto your art, you can restore back some of thecolor of your art. Invert your colors and reduce the opacity approximately 50%. Brush over the area of your art to restore its color. Make a new layerand name it, "Inner Glow". Open your Channels panel and Ctrl-click or Cmd-click the Neon Tubes channel to make aselection of its shape. Open back your Layers panel and go to Select and Select and Mask or Refine Edge. This time, feather it 20 pixels. Then, click OK. Click the Layer mask icon to make a layer mask of the selection next to "Inner Glow". Make the Medium Glow Layer active and make a copy of it. Drag the layer mask next to the Medium Glow copy. Then, make the Inner Glow layer active and delete it or drag it to the Trash.