Phantom Glow tutorial!

So you've seen that really awesome glowing image and want to learn how to do that yourself...or maybe you're just curious about this uber cool sounding tutorial. xP Well, nontheless, I'll guide you through the 10 second process of creating an image such as this:



For starters. the phantom glow does tend to look best on images containing orange, yellow, or gold colors, but is not limited to those colors. =) M'k, start by copying this image into Paint Shop Pro 8 (your results may differ from mine if you keep the black border on it):



Next, go up to Layers>Duplicate, like so: (and ignore my open images x])

Example

You should have made a 'Copy of Background' layer in your layer palette & it should have automatically become your active layer. Next, go up to Adjust> Brightness and Contrast> Brightness/Contrast.

Example

Go ahead and play around with the brightness and contrast a bit. Typically, more contrast and less brightness works best. I have my settings as follows:

Example

Your image should convert to the new contrasted image you created. Next, Go up to Adjust> Blur> Gaussian Blur.

Example

Set the image blur to 5 or above. I chose 6. It looks like this:



Next, find your layer palette. In the second column, scroll over until you find 'Normal'. Click it and select 'Overlay' from the drop down. I extended my palette to make my actions more visible:

Example

=3 And that's it. You should have a very simple, yet stylin' phantom glow for your image.