Brad's Graphics/Imaging Tip #3 - PhotoStyler Stroked Paths
Copyright 1994 Bradford K. Levy

Its possible to generate some effects similar to KPT's gradient-on-path
using an easily-overlooked feature of PhotoStyler 2.0 - Stroked Paths.
 
One use of stroked paths is to create neon-like effects.  Actually, you can
create "glowing" effects just by using a large soft edge when painting or
putting down text, but the glow will be single-colored.  Stroked paths
remove this limitation, allowing for a different colored background glow
from the foreground "tube" - or even several different layers of color.
 
To accomplish this (illuminating the word "NEON" using this technique),
follow these steps:
 
Select the text tool.
 
Select a good visible font size, and the outline style button on the tool
ribbon.
 
Click where you want the text, and type in the text (in this case, NEON).
 
Hit enter.
 
You should now have the marching ants marquee around the outline of the
text.
 
Select the brush tool.  Set the size to something fairly large (like 40
pixels horizontal and vertical). This will be the size of the "glow".
Set the spacing and stroke length (on the tool ribbon) to 0. Set soft edge
to maybe 5 or 10 pixels.
 
Set your foreground color to the color you want on the "backmost" portion of
the glow.
 
Now choose Stroke Selection on the Select menu.  The text is now outlined in
the color you chose, with some softness due to the soft edge selection.
 
Now set the brush size to a smaller horizontal and vertical value (like 30
pixels), and select the foreground color for the next "layer" of the glow.
 
Choose Stroke Selection again. You should see the new glow color inside/on
top of the original glow layer.
 
Reduce the brush size again, select the next color, and stroke the selection
again.  Repeat till you've got all the layers you want.
 
This actually produces an effect as if the neon was following the outline of
your text.  If you want it to appear as if the letters as a whole were
glowing, don't select the outline style when creating the text, and do
select the innermost glow color as the text color.  Then follow the
remainder of the steps above.
 
 
Now, for the second fun effect:  A marquee in your picture.  Put your name
in lights!
 
For this effect, follow the steps as above, but set the brush spacing to
maybe 20 or 50.  Now, instead of a solid tube, your text is outlined by a
series of glowing dots.
 
These effects are not restricted to text.  They can be applied to any
selection path in PhotoStyler.  (So you can put a nice rectangular marquee
of lights around your name in neon.)
 
Use a narrow brush, and you can easily make a nice dotted line
for outlining a coupon.  (Use a square brush if you want).
 
You also are not restricted to the using a brush.  The pencil, airbrush,
etc. also work.  You can even smudge along the outline.  Or sharpen, or
blur, or lighten, or darken.  Note that these "effects" will still still end
causing the original text outline (if the selection came from text) to be
stamped, as well (in the text color).  You might not want this; you might
just want the effect applied along the outline, with the outline being
invisible.  You can eliminate this "text color" stripe by choosing a text
color of black, and choosing "if lighter" under merge control on the select
menu before applying the effect.
 
An example created using this technique is the accompanying file BTIP3.JPG.
It illustrates all of the above.  Of particular note is the "3" in the 
image, which was generated by first stroking the text path with the smear 
tool, then with the sharpening tool.
 
Have fun,
 
-Brad
 On Compuserve: [72170,1503]
 On Internet: blevy@acm.org