Creating a Glow Effect

This tip describes how to create a Glow effect using the Smudge tool. It's very cool for a neon look or to make type stand out on a dark background.

Version: 5 and above

Creating Glow effects is nothing new. It is usually accomplished in programs like PhotoShop with ease. But in FreeHand™ it's been something of a mystery to create and look good too.

Above I want to create a Glow around the text block I've created. It's best to put the text on a separate layer from the background area. First, Clone the text block. Then Convert To Paths. Ungroup the objects, and while still selected, Join them into one composite shape. This will be the object I'll apply the Glow effect to.

Now it's time to setup the Glow colors. First I give the composite path a color that will be the Glow color. Here I chose Green in the example above. Next I double-click on the Smudge tool in the Xtra Tools palette. Here I drag in the background color to the Fill area in the Smudge-To Colors dialog and leave the Stroke blank. Then click OK.

Here's the fun part. Select the composite path to be Smudged, then choose the Smudge tool. While holding the option (Mac) / Alt (Win) key, click and drag on the selected object and you'll start to see the edges expand. By holding down option/Alt, this constrains the object and expands it instead of pulling it.

When you have an expanded area you like, just let go of the Mouse button and you'll see your smoothed edges like the example above. When I Joined the ungrouped shapes back together to a composite path, this eliminates any problems of overlapping smoothed objects. The detail example at right is what happens when you apply the Smudge effect to Grouped objects. Not pretty.

Finally, send the glowing shape to the back to reveal the original text. There, now doesn't that look great?

One other tip, it's a good idea to select the Glow object and apply the Remove Overlap Operation to further simplify the complex shapes. This makes a smaller file and printing time may be cut down.