STEP 18: In the Layers panel, drag
the Solid Color Fill layer beneath
the first type layer and double-click
its mask thumbnail (circled). In the
Properties panel that opens, drag
the Feather slider (also circled)
rightward to around 50.
Note: If this is the first time
you’ve ever double-clicked on a
layer mask thumbnail, Photoshop
will ask if you want that behav-
ior to View Properties or Enter
Select and Mask. The choice is
yours, of course, and you can
always change that behavior in
Photoshop (PC: Edit)>Prefer-
ences>Tools. If you have it set
to open Select and Mask, just
click on the layer mask thumbnail
in the Layers panel and then
manually open the Properties
panel (Window>Properties).STEP 19: Lower the Opacity set-
ting at the top of the Layers panel
(circled) to around 10%.STEP 20: Choose File>Save As
and pick Photoshop from the
Format drop-down menu so your
layers remain intact. If you started
in Lightroom, choose File>Save
instead. Here’s the final result after
rotating the word “Year” using
Free Transform (Command-T [PC:
Ctrl-T]), adding a couple of Photo-
shop’s built-in custom shapes,
applying our custom Neon style
to them, and changing the colors
in the layer styles to blue.As you can see, once you create
the neon style, it’s a piece of
cake to apply it to other layers
and then change the color. Until
next time, may the creative force
Final be with you all! n
Step 18 Step 19
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