How To Create A Sparkle Trend Advertisement – Photoshop Tutorial

by The Pro Designer on March 16, 2010

In this tutorial I explore how to create a stunning ad in the sparkle/glow trend. I am pulling inspiration from one of the coolest ad designers around, Chuck Anderson, a.k.a. NoPattern (URL: nopattern.com). A lot of people are wondering how he creates his light and glow effects in his ads. I’ll show you how to create a light effect similar to NoPattern’s style in this easy to follow tutorial!

The first thing is finding a great image to suit what you are advertising, here I just grabbed something off istockphoto of a snowboarder, as I will base this tutorial on a fictional ski brand, “Bluesky Extreme”.

Step 1: First off start a new document, 1500×2000 pixels, and make a new layer with a black background. Next paste your image/photo into the middle of the a new layer and select the background layer by double clicking the black background and select ‘Gradient Overlay’ in the Layer Style window.

With the bottom color try and match the bottom most blue of the snowboarder’s background and likewise for the top gradient color select the top most blue.

Step 2: With the eraser tool (E) set to a soft/blurred edge, size 250 and 30% opacity, erase the hard edges of the snowboarder image so it blends in with the gradient background. Don’t be afraid of rubbing over the snow bits. Don’t erase the left hard snow edge as this will be extended out later.

With the hard edge select your Smudge tool (R) and brush the edge of the snow out towards the edge of the canvas so it is being extended out of the page in a blurred motion.

Step 3: Next add the text with the text tool (T). I’ve used a font called “Rockwell Extra Bold”. Here I have rotated the two pieces of text so that they are sitting on top of the snowboarder’s arm.

Mask out the text so that it is hidden from over his head, to do this hide the text layers to make it easier to select around the snowboarder, now select the magnetic lasso(L) and go around the guys head and arm (anywhere that contacts the text).

Now invert select the selection (ctrl+shift+I), and select the layer that overlaps the image and press the “Add Layer Mask” button, this button is located at the bottom of your layers palette as shown below.

Step 4: Now comes the fun part; adding the glow and sparkle effects! First off let’s give the canvas a bit of colour.

Make a new layer (ctrl+shift+N) and dab on three or four bright colors with a large soft brush – here I have used purple, aqua and yellow, as these are complementary colors with the snowboarders clothing. Set the layer to ‘Overlay’ when you have finished adding the color to the layer.

Next add a glow around the text by double clicking on the layer and add an ‘Outer Glow’, leave everything as the default but change the color to suit and increase the size so that it glows out from the text to the amount you want.

Step 5: Create a new layer with filled black background, then go to Filter > Noise > Add Noise. Select an amount of less than 5%, with the Gaussian and Monochromatic options selected. Then change the blending mode to Screen and adjust the Levels (ctrl+L) of black and white points to create a textured grain. Next use a big soft eraser to remove sections of the grain background so it’s not so uniform.

Now to get the little star bursts brushes, download this handy brush set ‘Star Brushes’ (URL: http://qbrushes.net/objects/star-brushe/).

Next set up the brushes to use by loading it to your brushes palette and select a star brush from the pack and turn down the size, also adjust the spacing to 1000%. In the Shape Dynamics tab, change the Size Jitter to full and Minimum Diameter to 0%. In the Scattering tab, change to Scatter full.

Paint some stars in areas you wished highlighted; adjust the brush size between strokes to give a wider range of sizes. Next add a green glow around the stars.

Step 6: Now for the glow lines. Add a new layer, draw a spot of white using a soft brush. Then with the select marquee tool (M) select half and delete.

Press ctrl+T to transform the semi-circle into a streak of light, squash and rotate to the angle you want. Here I have positioned it to represent movement lines along the snowboarder.

Step 7: Now clone the streak, this can be done easily by selecting the layer and then pressing down ALT and moving the streak over to create a new copy of it. Do this a few times overlapping where needed to create a nice effect!

Step 8: Now that the ad is done you can add in any other necessary information to finish it off! So here below is the final result:

To sum it all up…

Creating this sparkle effect is easy to achieve. With the right composition and colors you can transform something dull to something fantastic! The sample PSD included is a smaller version of 500px, with a water mark placed over the istock image, as it is copyrighted, but you can see how the layers work together to create these effects.