If you read last week’s post you know I had a rough start to my year and have been working on trying to attain a “better” outer glow. That really has nothing to do with this post. But it is odd that once again the universe guided me to the amazing quote in the featured image at the very top of this post.

And after last week, you should now also know a few things about dealing with an inner glow. And as promised, today I’m going to talk about outer glows. Outer Glows can highlight your elements in a completely different way than an inner glow or even a shadow can. In other words, Outer Glows are transformative!

By learning to make things glow with Photoshop Elements (PSE), you can direct the viewer’s attention to a particular part of your image, such as an element, text or other graphics. The outer glow layer style is one of the simplest ways to make images glow in PSE.

If you’ve been creating layouts digitally for a while, you’ve likely already used an outer glow at least a couple times. But are you aware that outer glows can be used for more things than to illuminate an element?

Today I’m going to show you some other ways to use Outer Glows that have nothing to do with glowing but everything to do with increasing visibility on the page.

Outer Glows

In simple terms, an outer glow is used to do just that, make an element glow. I know that sounds instinctively obvious, but that’s generally what it’s for.

Most often we think about adding a glow to something like a lantern, a flame or even a shiny metal object. I know there are designers that package “lights” or “glows” within their kits. Those work out great when trying to make a lantern glow.

But not all kits include those handy pre-made “glows”. That’s when using the outer glow layer style in PSE can come to the rescue. I’m going to show you two different approaches to a basic outer glow…

Basic Outer Glow

Before I move forward, just a quick reminder…I use PSE – 2024. So, my screen shots may look different than what you see on your screen.

Let’s take a look at this lantern:

Note: The lantern and the wood background are both from “Little Bit Country”, by Aimee Harrison.

Some people, especially beginners would just use the outer glow layer style on the lantern to show it glowing:

I used the following settings for the outer glow:

I set the color chip to a nice soft yellow (#f4edaf), the Size to 165 px and the Opacity to 97%.

While that “full” glow might work for most people, I don’t necessarily want/need a glow around the entire lantern (especially around the bottom). I really just want to add a glow around the actual lighting “space” in the middle.

So, I’m going to make a selection around just that part of the lantern:

Note: I used the Selection Brush tool to do that. You can use any selection method you prefer. And if you need pointers on how to make a good selection, please refer back to my March 5, 2024 post about making the Right Selection.

With just that part of the lantern selected I create a duplicate layer (Ctrl+J) of just that portion. Then I go to the top tool bar and click Layer->Layer Style->Style Settings:

PSE opens the Layer Style Dialog box and I set the Outer Glow Settings to the same as I used on the “full” glow above (glow color chip to a soft yellow (#f4edaf), the Size to 165 px and Opacity to 97%.)

Remember, lighting angle is irrelevant when working with glows. I click OK to confirm and now there’s a glow on just that section:

Note: I did mask away part of the duplicate section of the lantern to make the glow look a bit more realistic.

So, there you go. A lantern with a reasonably realistic glow relatively quickly. Well, that was a lot of adjectives 😉 All kidding aside, the simple way of adding a basic glow wasn’t horrible. But going the extra step I showed you makes it look so much more realistic.

And there’s so much more we can do with an outer glow. Using an outer glow comes in handy for a lot of other things.

Dark Outer Glows

Sometimes I don’t want an element to have a shadow that makes it look like it’s not lying directly on the page. But I still want it to show up a bit better than if I just place it on the paper. Let’s take a look at a recent layout of mine:

I’m going to open this in PSE and zoom in on that large wagon wheel to the right:

This is what it looks like without either a drop shadow or a glow. Now I’m going to apply a standard drop shadow:

Since that wagon wheel is under paper…that shadow makes it look too far removed from the base layer. I really don’t want any lift on that wagon wheel. I just want to make it stand out a bit over that base layer. So, I’m going to show you what it looks like with a glow:

Can you see the difference between the shadow and the glow? There’s just enough “boost” behind that wheel to make it more noticeable. But not so much that it looks lifted off the paper. One of the reasons this happens is because the glow goes all the way around the wheel.

I could have achieved the same look with a drop shadow. The key there is that you need to set the Distance to 0 (zero) pixels. This tells PSE that you want the shadow to show all around the image. But I wanted you to see how a glow works.

And there’s a bit more to this story. That glow is a very, very dark brown, nearly black (#1f0808). Sadly, although not unexpected, in PSE we have the same issue with using black for an outer glow as we do with the inner glow. In PSE the Outer Glow also has that pesky “built-in” Blend Mode set to Screen. And if you read last week’s post you know that means, Screen cancels out black (or most other very, very dark colors) therefore the black does not show up at all.

So how did I create a very dark brown outer glow? I have to put the glow on its own layer. This process is nearly identical to putting a stroke on its own layer (not to be confused with putting a shadow on its own layer). I described this in my April 30, 2024 post about Creating Shape Outlines.

In case you don’t already know how to do this, I’ll save you the trouble of digging up that prior post. Here’s a quick refresher.

I’m going to duplicate the Wagon Wheel layer and name the duplicate Wagon Wheel #2. I need to do this so I can keep the unaltered shape of the Wagon Wheel handy. For now I’m going to hide the original.

I then ensure that the Wagon Wheel #2 layer is active. Next, I apply the Outer Glow using these settings:

I set the color chip to the very dark color I mentioned above (#1f0808), the Size to 160 px and the Opacity to 69%. Given what I’ve said about dark glows you won’t be surprised to see that it’s not showing up on the page:

Not to worry…it’s really there. You’ll just have to trust me!

Now I’ll simplify this Wagon Wheel #2 layer.

Note: Sometimes it is necessary to repeat the Simplify Layer step. If you simplify your layer and you still see the Effects icon (fx) on the right edge in the Layers Panel, then your layer is not completely simplified. So, you must repeat the simplify to get rid of that. This depends on whether or not the element was still a “Smart Object” before applying the layer style. In those cases that is the first simplification PSE applies.

And guess what happens:

The dark glow is now visible. I’m guessing you’re wondering why. As soon as I simplify the layer it negates the blend mode of Screen that prevented the glow from showing in the first place. That’s another little “undocumented” (but nice) feature in PSE!

Now, I could leave things as they are but I am going to go ahead and put that glow on its own layer so I can manipulate it a bit more. If you’re happy with how your glow turns out, you can skip this next part.

With the Wagon Wheel #2 layer active I then Right-Click on the original Wagon Wheel layer to select that shape:

Ensuring that the Wagon Wheel #2 layer is still active I simply press the Delete key and clear the selection:

I can then unhide the original Wagon Wheel layer and change the Blend mode on the Wagon Wheel #2 layer to Multiply and I set the opacity to 40%:

I like this much better than before. It’s way more subtle this way. And if you look closely at the original layout, you’ll probably be able to figure out that I also applied a glow to the words that make up the title.

Note: That layout was made using “Little Bit Country” by Aimee Harrison (link above). For more details about this layout, you can find it in my 2024 Gallery.

Since the layout I used involved a dark background I’ve actually covered more than just putting a dark glow around an image. I’ve also shown you how to use a glow on dark paper. Just create your glow using a color to match your dark background (regardless of how dark the paper is). Then put the glow on a separate layer. Now you can manipulate that glow by changing the opacity and the blend mode to get the desired effect. Try using the Multiply, Hard Light or Linear Light blend modes. These tend to work best on dark backgrounds.

And here’s another quick example of using a glow on darker paper. I recently created this layout for the Cindy Ritter Designs Creative Team:

While the background paper isn’t terribly dark, it did make it challenging to come up with a good color for the journaling text. I finally settled on a soft cream color (#fdf6ea) very similar to the text on one of the word strips.

While that color worked out ok, parts of the journaling still seemed to get lost. So, I added an outer glow in a turquoise color (#1daac4) that matched one of the shades elsewhere in the layout. This helped the text show up much better. I didn’t have to do anything else special to get the glow to work in this case. This is a technique I discussed quite some time ago in my “Tell Your Story” post back on March 28, 2023.

The next time you have trouble getting your journaling to show up nicely on any paper, it might be worth trying an outer glow.

Note: The layout above was created using Cindy Ritter’s “Spellbound” collection. For more details about this layout, you can find it in my 2024 CT Gallery.

Outer Glows On White

Let’s take another look at the “Just Glow With It” image near the top of this post:

Now I’m certain you think I’ve gone off my rocker because that’s anything but a white background. Bear with me. There’s a method to my madness 😉

When I was creating that image, I actually started with the text on a white background. Mostly because I wasn’t 100% certain which image (out of 3) that I would end up using:

I applied an Outer Glow using the following settings:

I set the color chip to a fairly dark blue (#211b6f), the size to 43 px and the Opacity to 100%. Here’s what happened:

No glow!!! You have to be wondering what’s going on! Well, unfortunately it’s that pesky “built-in” Blend Mode set to Screen on the glow layer style. It causes the same problem on white (or other very light) backgrounds just as it did when trying to create a black glow. But this time it’s not because the glow color is too dark…it’s because the background is so light. Thanks again PSE ☹.

No worries. I just have to treat this glow the same way I did with the black glow above. I put that blue glow on its own layer and I now have this:

And before you start wondering…it really didn’t have anything to do with how dark a color I was trying to use for the glow. The same thing happened even when I tried a very bright yellow!

One last thing before I let you go. There’s a fun little side benefit to putting your glow on its own layer. You can actually just use the glow for a very interesting effect:

This works on images as well as text. Just imagine how much fun you can have creating random glow “stencils” of sorts to decorate a layout!

And check back next week for some tips on a completely different kind of glow that doesn’t require layer styles!

More Glowing Tips

When you hear the name “Outer Glow”, you might automatically assume that this glow effect is limited to just that, an Outer Glow. The truth is that there is much more you can do with it.

Outer Glow can also be used to create faux drop shadows, as well as adding outer strokes to your designs.

With your glow on its own layer Blend Modes allow you to set the blending mode for your Outer Glow. Linear Dodge, Linear Burn or Multiply work well. But most often, Normal is fine.

If using a very dark (like black) or very light (like white) background, outer glows will not show up unless you put it on its own layer.

Use an outer glow to accentuate your journaling or other text on your layout. This works especially well on dark or busy patterned papers.

If you have your glow on a separate layer, don’t be afraid to use just the glow (especially if around text) for a very interesting effect.

An Outer Glow makes a subtle difference in how an element presents on your page. It can be the difference between a good page and a great page. Give it a try!

Now it’s your turn to play with creating amazing glow effects for your designs! With Outer Glow in your arsenal, there’s a lot more you can achieve.

As always, if you have any questions or want to make a suggestion about a topic you’d like me to cover, please don’t ever hesitate to “Message Me”.

Thanks for reading this week’s Tuesday Tip. If you want to stay informed about new posts, just click “Follow Me” to stay in touch. I hope you have a wonderful week!