Create Realistic Neon Text Effect in Photoshop

In this tutorial, I will show you the processes used to created this unique neon text effect in Photoshop. We will be using a number of Photoshop techniques such as layer masking, selection, blending options, pen tool and adjustment layers.

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Here is a preview of the final effect I have for this tutorial: (click to enlarge)

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To complete this tutorial, you will need the following stocks:

Font

Brick texture

Step 1

Create a new document sized 1400px * 782px with black background. Load the brick texture into Photoshop and select a portion of it with the Rectangular Marquee tool, we will use this as our background:

Copy and paste the selection over to our document and re-size it to fit our canvas. Apply the following Gaussian Blur filter to this layer:

Set the layer opacity to around 60%:

Apply the following layer mask to this brick layer to hide parts of it:

Apply the following color balance adjustment layer to add a bit of colour to the brick layer:

and you will have the following effect so far:

Step 2

We will start working on the text in this step. Use the font we downloaded and type some texts using the colour shown below:

Apply the following layer blending options to this text layer:

Bevel and Emboss

Stroke

Inner Shadow

Satin

Color Overlay

Gradient Overlay

Outer Glow

Drop Shadow

and you will have the following effect so far:

Step 3

Duplicate this text layer once and move it slightly to the angle shown below:

Repeat the above process and duplicate more text layers, until you form the following effect:

On the last layer you duplicated, apply the following Hue/Saturation adjustment and darken the layer as shown below:

and here is the effect so far:

Step 4

We will add some highlights around the text with a 6px, 90% hardness brush:

Set the brush to have the following colour:

Create a new layer above all previous layers and set its blending mode to “overlay”, and use the brush to paint over the following areas:

We can also add some smoke/cloud effect to the following positions, with a cloud brush or smoke brush:

and here is the effect so far:

Step 5

We will add some wires around text. Use the Pen Tool to draw a path as shown below:

Use 5px, hard brush, stroke this path:

Apply the following Bevel and Emboss layer blending option to this line:

And you will see the following effect:

Duplicate this wire layer a few times, adjust the size and shape of each duplicated layer, and attach them to each of the letters as shown below:

Step 6

We’re almost done! To fine-tune this text effect, we can add the following adjustment layers on top:

Selective Color

Curves

and this is my final effect: (click to enlarge)

That’s it for this tutorial! Hope you enjoy going through it and find it useful. Drop me a comment below if you have any question.

Till next time, have a great day!