phrebh

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Graphics :: General :: Neon Tutorial

Neon Tutorial for Paint.NET

Neon lights and signs are ubiquitous in real life, and now you can make them for your site.

  1. Draw some line art. Here's a tree I drew a few years ago. If you're drawing it yourself, don't use anti-aliasing. If you got it from somewhere else, try using Adjustments, Layers... to remove any anti-aliasing (I usually try around 195/194 on the input side). Also the effect works best when the line width is only one pixel. As the drawing gets larger, the width can get bigger, though.
    Line Art Tree
  2. Get rid of the background color.
    • Choose Magic Wand tool.
    • Change the flood mode to Global.
    • Adjust the Tolerance to limit or expand the amount of pixels selected.
    • Click on the background to select it.
    • Hit Delete on your keyboard

    Delete Background
  3. Colorize the foreground if you started with a black and white picture. You can skip this step if you were smart enough to draw your line art in the color you want your neon to be.
    • Go to Adjustments, Curves...
    • Change the type from Luminosity to RGB.
    • Play around until you get the color you want. I deselected Red and Green and created a control point at (0, 255) to make it blue.

    Colorize
  4. Add a new layer for the background. Fill it in with black and move it to the bottom.
    Delete Background
  5. Change the name of your line art layer to "Top".
  6. Duplicate the "Top" layer.
  7. Label the middle layer "Sat 70".
  8. Gaussian blur the "Sat 70" layer.
    • Select the "Sat 70" layer.
    • Fill in the background with black.
    • Go to Effects, Blurs, Gaussian Blur...
    • Set it to 1 and click OK.
  9. Adjust the levels of the "Sat 70" layer.
    • Select the "Sat 70" layer.
    • Go to Adjustments, Levels...
    • On the input side set the high level to 50 and the low level to 20 and click OK.
    • Delete the black background.

    Adjusted Sat 70
  10. Duplicate the "Sat 70" layer 3 times for a total of 5 layers.
  11. Label the layers below "Sat 70", in order from highest to lowest, as "Blur 5", "Blur 10", and "Blur 20".
    Renamed Layers
  12. Gaussian blur the "Blur 20" layer.
    • Select the "Blur 20" layer.
    • Go to Effects, Blurs, Gaussian Blur...
    • Set it to 20 and click OK.

    Blur 20
  13. Gaussian blur the "Blur 10" layer.
    • Select the "Blur 10" layer.
    • Go to Effects, Blurs, Gaussian Blur...
    • Set it to 10 and click OK.

    Blur 10
  14. Gaussian blur the "Blur 5" layer.
    • Select the "Blur 5" layer.
    • Go to Effects, Blurs, Gaussian Blur...
    • Set it to 5 and click OK.

    Blur 5
  15. Change the color of the "Sat 70" layer.
    • Select the "Sat 70" layer.
    • Change your foreground color's saturation (S under HSV) to be 70. (This setting assumes that it was originally 100. If it was lower, then just subtract 30 from what it is. If it's less than 30, then the color probably won't be bright enough to give you a good effect anyway.)
    • Select the Paint Bucket tool.
    • Change the flood mode to Global.
    • Adjust the Tolerance to limit or expand the amount of pixels affected.
    • Click on your line drawing to change it's color.

    70% Saturation
  16. Change the color of the "Top" layer.
    • Select the "Top" layer.
    • Change your foreground color to white
    • Select the Paint Bucket tool.
    • Change the flood mode to Global.
    • Adjust the Tolerance to limit or expand the amount of pixels affected.
    • Click on your line drawing to change it's color.

    Finished Neon

Play with the settings and have fun.

Colorful Tree

Neon Phrebh