SAMS Teach Yourself Adobe® Photoshop® CS2 in 24 Hours

Adding Glows

There are other layer styles on the menu besides drop shadows, and most are useful. In the last example, I needed a glow as well as a shadow to separate the letters from the background. Let's try working with glow styles. You can use a layer style to place a glow—or in this case an outline—around your type. You can also apply an inner glow as I just did, to make it appear as if the letters themselves are glowing. This is a great effect to add emphasis around a piece of text or to make it stand out from a busy background. Figure 17.19 shows a fairly ordinary text and photo combination.

Figure 17.19. The letters don't quite stand out enough.

In Figure 17.20, I've applied a light Outer Glow around the letters. It's simply another way ...