How to make spray paint /over spray effect?

Question

I wanted to know if anyone knows how to make a similar spray paint effect at includes the overspray effect. In the photo, if you look closely you can see around the surrounding letters & numbers that there's an overspray kinda glow added.

Answer 1

That image kind of appear to be a print on some sort of metallic substrate where the "glow" is actually a bleed or smear of the ink.

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In any event, it takes some experimentation to try and mimic. Often one needs to stack things to get to the end result. This is especially true since no single layer can contain more than one "live" outer glow layer style.

This is merely how I started exploring possible replication.....

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Bottom Up in the Layer stack...

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Layer 1 is solid white at 100%

Layer 2 is solid black at 50% opacity

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E

Solid black layer then run Filter > Noise > Add Noise and tick Monochrome and add as much noise as you feel is correct.

When done, Invert the layer (Image > Adjustments > Invert). Then add a Color Overlay Layer Style:

Then lower the opacity of the layer to around 30% and set the Blend Mode to Multiply. It's a little prominent here, so I'd most likely play with a lower opacity. Or I'd add a layer mask and run Fibers on the layer mask to mask some of the noise. But I've closed the file and it's gone now.

This creates the blue noise present in the background.

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D

First Text layer. Simple solid blue text with layer style:

The main difference here is a lighter blue is used for this glow. the other glows all use the same color as the text.

Note the adjustments in the Quality area to the Contour and Range.

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C

Another solid blue text layer with a different layer style:

The main difference here is the color is the same as the text color.

Again note the adjustments in the Quality area to the Contour and Range options.

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B

Another solid blue text layer with yet another different layer style:

In addition to much more noise the adjustments in the Quality area create more of the outer diffusion overall. This is why Opacity and the Elements items are lower in this layer style.

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A

Then....

• Group the three text layers.
• Duplicate the group and convert it to a Smart Object.
• On the Smart Object Layer run Filter > Gaussian Blur to add a slight blur to everything.

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Then I went back and adjusted Layer Opacity for the three original text layers to compensate for the smart object being present:

• B I left at 100% opacity
• C I set to 20% opacity
• D I set to 10% opacity

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While it's not a "perfect" match, it's getting close. From here it merely takes more adjustments and refinement as you see fit.

The primary areas I would focus on to adjust more would be those Quality area adjustments in the layer styles. Those will alter the drop off and size of the various glows.