Glowing Lines

[Sondra Howard HBC]

Hi All -

I found the attached image on Shutterstock and was wondering how would one recreate the lines coming out of the mobile device if done in Photoshop? What is the best approach and tools to do something like this? Thanks for any insight and help you can provide.

[davescm · Accepted solution]

There are several ways but I would do it like this.

Use the pen tool to draw some curves. Stroke each with a brush whose shape dynamics are set so that the size jitter is set to fade

I have shown the strokes against a black background

Add a gradient fill layer clipped to that layer (use Alt click on the border between them in the layers panel). I used a radial gradient

The notes are custom shapes (there is a "Music" set supplied in Photoshop).

Each is plain white with an outer glow added in layer styles

Hopefully that will get you started

Dave

[Sondra Howard HBC]

Thanks a million for your help, Dave!

Everything worked fine with a little tweaking of the fading and figuring out the paths actually fade from the end point of the path rather than the beginning. (Logically this makes sense, I just wasn't thinking.) I did have to modify one step because I don't know how to apply a gradient fill layer clipped to the stroked path layer. I added a gradient overlay to the paths to try to replicate the effect.

I also did not know what you meant by the music set in Photoshop and/or how to access. I just drew vector shapes and tried to recreate.

Thanks again!

[davescm]

Hi Sondra

Glad you managed to get it working.

To answer your questions :

1. To add a gradient fill layer :

Use menu - Layer - New Fill Layer -Gradient

If you then click on the layer a menu opens where you can choose a Radial gradient in "Style"

2. To clip a layer to the layer below so that it only shows where there is content on the layer below:
In the layers panel Alt-Click on the border between the two layers. An arrow will appear next to the upper layer to show it is clipped

3. To get the music shapes

Select the custom shape tool

In the options bar click on the little arrow next to Shape then on the cog wheel then select the set from the menu

These might help for next time

Dave

[Trevor.Dennis]

Great post Dave, and it's what I do in a lot of situations, but it usually takes a bit of trial and error to get the Fade value right, so when there is room, I double the workpath back on itself, and stroke with Simulate pressure.

So who knows the formula for predicting Fade values?  It's related to brush size and spacing, and I have never been able reliably set Fade value to finish exactly where I want it.

[EDIT]  Last resort.  Read the instructions.  It turns out not to be a function of brush size, but purely related to the number of stamp downs, so spacing is what counts.  So with spacing set to 1%, AFAICT a fade setting of 1000, will taper from full to nothing in 1000 pixels.

[davescm]

Cheers Trevor

That is useful to know - I always used the "couple of trial strokes" method

Dave