LOPSY

Make a Neon Sign Poster on a Brick Wall Photo

Build a glowing neon saloon poster in Lopsy with Pen-tool tubes, outline-tube lettering, inner and outer glows, light spill and Bloom on a brick photo.

  • Advanced
  • 120 min
  • 23 steps

Updated

The finished 1600 by 2000 poster. Neon signs glow on a dark brick wall at night. At the top an amber neon cowboy hat sits inside a tilted turquoise lasso loop whose rope runs down the right side and ends in a turquoise neon microphone. Below it the word Karaoke is written in pink neon script. A dark metal raceway carries COWBOY in oxblood letters outlined with amber neon tubes. Under it EVERY THURSDAY glows in turquoise between two amber sparkles, above a red marquee board ringed with light bulbs that reads SILVER SPUR, SALOON, OPEN MIC, 9 PM TILL LAST CALL. A painted footer reads 1407 RAILROAD AVE, NO COVER, BOOTS WELCOME

Real neon is glass tube bent over a flame. It's one even line with rounded ends and a white-hot core, and its light washes over whatever it's mounted on. This tutorial fakes all of that for a poster advertising Karaoke Cowboy, a made-up Thursday open-mic night at the Silver Spur Saloon:

  • a brick-wall photo graded down to night
  • tubes drawn with the Pen tool and Stroke Path, or cut from selections with Shrink
  • outline-tube lettering traced around painted letter faces
  • Inner Glow for the hot core, Outer Glow for the halo, then light pools and a Bloom pass that make the bricks look lit

The wall is the CC0 photo Red brick wall (Unsplash).jpg from Wikimedia Commons. Crop its left 1400 × 1750 px and scale it to 1600 × 2000 px before you start.

The palette:

  • Night tint
  • Amber tube
  • amber glow
  • Turquoise tube
  • turquoise glow
  • Pink tube
  • pink glow
  • Raceway
  • letter faces
  • Board
  • cream paint
  • bulbs

Every tube is drawn in its pale core colour. The saturated colour only ever comes from the glow effects, and that's what makes it read as lit glass and not paint.

  1. Paste the brick wall photo

    1. Create a 1600 × 2000 px document (File → New, Unit = Pixels, White background).
    2. Copy the cropped brick photo in your image viewer and press Cmd+V in Lopsy. A clipboard image is fitted to the canvas, centred and selected with the Move tool.
    3. Press Cmd+D to drop the selection, and rename the layer Brick Wall.
    The 1600 by 2000 canvas filled with a pasted photo of a red brick wall, with transform handles around it

  2. Grade the wall down to night

    1. Run Filter → Hue/Saturation with Hue 0, Saturation −55, Lightness −18.
    2. Run Filter → Brightness/Contrast with Brightness −10, Contrast +20.

    Go easy here. Lightness is added straight onto the HSL lightness, so −38 crushes mid-tone bricks to black. Brightness adds its value straight on as well.

    The Hue/Saturation dialog open with Saturation -55 and Lightness -18 over the darkened brick wall

  3. Add a night tint and guides

    1. Add a layer named Night, fill it with (Edit → Fill with nothing selected), set it to Multiply in the effects drawer's Blend menu, and drop the row opacity to 80%.
    2. Click the top ruler at x 110, 800 and 1490 for vertical guides: the margins and the centre line. Click the left ruler at y 900 and 1210 for the top and bottom of the main sign.
    The wall darkened to a dusky blue-brown with blue guides at x 110, 800 and 1490 and y 900 and 1210

  4. Draw the cowboy hat with the Pen tool

    1. Make a group Hat Sign and inside it a layer Hat Tube. Set the foreground to .
    2. Pick the Pen tool and set Stroke to 14 in the options bar.
    3. Draw the hat band first: click (626, 318), drag out a smooth point at (800, 336), click (974, 318), then press Enter. Enter adds the path and strokes it.
    4. Now the outline. Click the brim tips (450, 296) and (1150, 296) and the crown corners (618, 368) and (982, 368). Every other point is a press-and-drag that pulls out handles. Go along the brim's underside, up the right side of the crown, across the dented top (dip to (800, 176)) and back down the left.
    A cowboy hat outline drawn as a Bezier path with its anchors showing, and a pale amber hat band already stroked inside the crown

  5. Close and stroke the hat outline

    Click back on the first anchor to close the outline, then press Enter to stroke it at 14. Deselect the path's row in the Paths panel afterwards to hide its anchors.

    The hat outline stroked in pale amber with Path 2 selected in the Paths panel and its anchors still showing

  6. Cut a lasso ring with Shrink

    1. Add Lasso Tube and set the foreground to .
    2. Drag an Elliptical Marquee from (210, 100) to (1330, 500) and fill it.
    3. Run Select → Shrink by 12 and press Delete. What's left is a ring of perfectly even width: a tube.
    A large ellipse filled with pale turquoise, with marching ants shrunk 12 pixels inside its edge

  7. Rotate the lasso

    Drag a rectangular marquee just outside the ring, switch to the Move tool, and drag the rotation handle (just outside the top-right corner, where the cursor turns into a crosshair) by −7°. Press Cmd+D to commit. The tilt makes it read as a rope in motion and not a badge.

    The lasso ring inside a transform box tilted 7 degrees anticlockwise, with the rotate handle at the top right

  8. Add the honda, the cord and the microphone

    1. Honda knot: on Lasso Tube, marquee a 52 px circle centred at (1318, 262), fill it, Shrink 11, then Delete and deselect. The hole cuts through the loop, so the rope looks like it passes through the knot.
    2. Cord: with the Pen at width 12, click (1330, 287), drag smooth points through (1410, 400), (1458, 560), (1438, 760) and (1370, 860), click (1281, 826), and press Enter.
    3. Microphone: on a new layer Mic Tube, make an 88 px ring centred at (1315, 594) the same way (Shrink 11). Add two short Pen grille lines at width 9 across it, keeping a gap at each end. Then set Stroke to 11 and draw a closed four-point handle from (1288, 646) down to (1268, 810) / (1294, 814) and back up to (1336, 652). Click the first anchor to close it and press Enter. Finish with a small filled ellipse at the bottom as an end cap where the cord plugs in.
    The tilted loop with a small knot ring at its right end, a rope curving down the right side, and a microphone with a round head and a long handle at its end

  9. Write "Karaoke" in a monoline script

    1. Select Night, then make a group Karaoke Sign and an empty layer Script Base inside it.
    2. Pick the Text tool. Choose Sacramento, Size 340, colour , and click at (170, 494). Type Karaoke and press Tab.

    Sacramento is a monoline script, about 13 px wide at this size everywhere. That makes it a ready-made neon tube.

    The word Karaoke in a thin, even pale pink script under the lasso, ending just short of the microphone

  10. Rasterize and tilt the script

    Click Rasterize Layer in the Layers footer before transforming, because rotating live text doesn't stick. Marquee the word, and rotate it −3° with the Move tool's rotation handle so it climbs towards the mic. Then Cmd+D.

    The rasterized Karaoke script inside a transform box rotated 3 degrees so the word climbs to the right

  11. Draw the raceway

    Neon letters are mounted on a metal box called a raceway.

    1. Select Night, then make a group Cowboy Sign and a layer Raceway.
    2. Pick the Shape tool. Set Shape to Rectangle, Corner Radius to 24, the Fill to and no stroke, with Output on Pixels.
    3. Click once at (800, 1056) and enter 1432 × 304. The box runs from (84, 904) to (1516, 1208).
    A rectangular marquee from 84, 904 to 1516, 1208 snapped to a fine 4 pixel grid under the script

  12. Brush the metal

    Cmd-click the Raceway thumbnail to select the box, then run Filter → Add Noise (Amount 22, Mono, Gaussian) and Filter → Motion Blur (Angle 0, Distance 60). The blur stretches the noise into brushed grain. Deselect.

    A dark blue-grey rounded raceway with a subtle horizontal brushed-metal grain

  13. Paint the letter faces

    Set the Text panel's Letter spacing to 34 before clicking, so each letter gets room for its own tube. Then type COWBOY in Alfa Slab One, Size 220, colour , and name the layer COWBOY Faces. Use the Move tool's Align center horizontally with nothing selected, then arrow-nudge until the top of the ink sits at y 966.

    The word COWBOY in heavy oxblood slab-serif letters centred on the raceway

  14. Trace outline tubes around the letters

    1. Add COWBOY Tube above the faces and set the foreground to .
    2. Cmd-click the COWBOY Faces thumbnail to select the letter shapes. Then Select → Grow 6 and fill.
    3. Deselect, Cmd-click the thumbnail again, Select → Shrink 5, and press Delete.

    You're left with an 11 px tube that straddles every letter edge and follows the W's notches and the Y's crotch. A large Grow bridges narrow notches with a straight tube, so keep the Grow small and let half the tube sit inside the letter.

    The COWBOY letters filled pale amber with marching ants just inside every letter edge

  15. Light the raceway from behind the letters

    Add Raceway Spill just above Raceway and Cmd-click the raceway thumbnail. Open the Gradient tool's Advanced… editor, set Radial from at 100% to at 0%, and drag from (800, 1056) to (1500, 1056). Deselect, then set the layer to Screen at 40%. Metal sitting a few centimetres behind lit tubes always picks up their colour.

    A radial orange gradient glowing in the middle of the raceway behind the COWBOY letters, fading toward the ends

  16. Copy, scale and rotate a sparkle

    1. On a Stars layer in Hat Sign, Pen a closed 8-point sparkle at width 10: tips 72 px from (210, 205), inner points 17 px. Click the first anchor to close it and press Enter to stroke it.
    2. Marquee it, Cmd+C, then Cmd+V. The paste lands in place on its own layer, selected, with the Move tool ready.
    3. Cmd-drag a corner handle to scale it to 55%.
    4. Rotate it 15°.
    5. Drag it to (1405, 165), outside the loop, and press Cmd+D. Then Layer → Merge Down into Stars.
    A small four-point star copied from the big one, rotated inside a tilted transform box near the original sparkle

  17. Build the marquee board and its bulbs

    1. Select Night and make a new group Saloon Board with a layer Board. With the Shape tool (Rectangle, Corner Radius 22, Fill ), click at (800, 1606) and enter 1120 × 372, which fills (240, 1420)–(1360, 1792). Cmd-click the thumbnail and add Noise 10 for painted grain.
    2. On Pinstripe, fill the rectangle (310, 1490)–(1290, 1722) with , then Shrink 4 and Delete for a hairline frame.
    3. On Bulbs, open the brush-tip thumbnail (the Brushes modal). On the Shape tab set Size 22, Hardness 100 and Spacing 200%: one dab every 44 px.
    4. Click (272, 1452), then Shift-click (1328, 1452), (1328, 1760), (272, 1760) and back to the start. The side lengths are multiples of 44, so a bulb lands exactly in every corner.
    5. Under Bulbs, add Sockets. Cmd-click the bulbs thumbnail, Grow 4, and fill .
    A deep red rounded board with a thin cream pinstripe frame and a border of evenly spaced cream bulb dots in dark sockets

  18. Set the board type, the tagline and the footer

    Before each line, click Bulbs and set up the text as listed, with Letter spacing 0. Create each line in empty canvas, Align center horizontally, then nudge it to its top edge:

    • SILVER SPUR: Smokum 160, , top at y 1519
    • SALOON · OPEN MIC · 9 PM TILL LAST CALL: Rye 34, top at 1667. That gives even 25 px gaps between frame, headline, subline and frame.
    • EVERY THURSDAY: Tilt Neon 96, , top at 1281, halfway between the raceway and the board. On a new Thursday Stars layer, Pen two small sparkles beside it at x 372 and 1228.
    • 1407 RAILROAD AVE · NO COVER · BOOTS WELCOME: Rye 32, , top at 1872

    On a Mac, type the · characters with Option+Shift+9.

    SILVER SPUR in tall western capitals on the board with a smaller subline, EVERY THURSDAY in pale turquoise between two sparkles above, and a cream address line at the bottom

  19. Clip the tubes to the wall

    Real tubes hang on little glass standoffs. On a Standoffs layer at the top of Hat Sign, set a hard brush to Size 11 with colour . Click once on the centre of a tube every 250–400 px along the lasso, the cord, the hat and the script. Give the layer a Drop Shadow (0, 3, blur 4, 70%) so the clips sit off the wall.

    Small grey glass clip dots sitting on the lasso, hat, cord and script tubes

  20. Light the tubes with Inner and Outer Glow

    Open the effects drawer on Hat Tube and enable both glows in amber :

    • Inner Glow: Size 4, Spread 30, Opacity 100. The edges turn saturated amber while the centre stays pale: the hot core.
    • Outer Glow: Size 40, Spread 14, Opacity 85. That's the halo.
    The hat now glowing amber with a soft halo while the other tubes are still flat pale lines

  21. Switch on every sign

    Repeat the same two glows on every tube layer in its own colour:

    • Lasso Tube, Mic Tube: turquoise
    • Karaoke: pink
    • COWBOY Tube:
    • Stars, Thursday Stars: amber
    • Every Thursday: Inner Glow Size 3, Spread 0, which keeps a visible white core in the thinner strokes

    Then the supporting cast:

    • COWBOY Faces: a faint amber Inner Glow (12 / 0 / 30%).
    • Bulbs: an Inner Glow in (9 / 10 / 100%) for hot centres, and an Outer Glow in (18 / 16 / 80%).
    • Board: an Inner Glow in (30 / 0 / 22%) so the bulbs light the red, plus a Drop Shadow (0, 14, blur 28, 75%). Raceway gets the same shadow.
    • SILVER SPUR: a tight 6 px cream Outer Glow and a 2 px dark Drop Shadow.
    All of the signs glowing: turquoise lasso and mic, pink script, amber COWBOY, turquoise EVERY THURSDAY and warm bulbs on the board

  22. Paint light spill on the bricks

    Add Wall Glow above Night and fill it black. For each sign, make an elliptical marquee around it, Select → Feather 50, and fill it with a dark version of that sign's colour:

    • amber behind the hat
    • teal beside the rope and under EVERY THURSDAY
    • magenta behind the script
    • orange around COWBOY
    • brown around the board
    • dim in the bottom-left corner, so it doesn't die to black

    Run Gaussian Blur 70 and set the layer to Screen at 85%. The black disappears, and the bricks light up in pools that match their sources.

    Soft coloured ellipses on black: amber behind the hat, turquoise beside the rope, pink under the script, orange behind COWBOY and warm light around the board

  23. Finish with a Bloom pass

    1. Hide Saloon Board and run Edit → Copy Merged, then paste at the top of Hat Sign and name the layer Bloom. Show the board again.
    2. Run Filter → Bloom (Threshold 58, Soft Knee 55, Radius 50, Intensity 130). Set the layer to Lighten at 65%.
    3. Marquee the board area (236, 1416)–(1364, 1796) on Bloom and press Delete. The copy was made with the board hidden, so it holds bricks there, and Lighten would show them through the dark red paint.

    Turn the guides off (View → Show Guides) and export. The bloom softens every tube's edge into the haze you see around real neon at night.

    The Bloom dialog with Threshold 58, Soft Knee 55, Radius 50 and Intensity 130 over the poster
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