How to Make a Light Burst Text Effect in Photoshop

Photoshop Text Effects

Adding some effects to text can enhance the impact of design projects, digital art, marketing materials, or even social media graphics. And a Light Burst effect will inject energy and vibrancy, instantly drawing attention to your message and making it stand. Of course there are a few different ways to acheve this effect, but today I will show you a very easy method to make this effect and keep the text and colors fully editable in case you want to use this effect in more than one project without having to make the whole effect again.

Step 1

Open Photoshop and make a new file at any size you want. In this case I will make mine at 1800 x 1200 px.

Step 2

Click on the "Create a New Layer" icon in the Layers Panel and name it "Design".

Step 3

With the new layer selected, go to Layer > Smart Objects > Convert to Smart Object.

Step 4

Double click on the smart object layer thumbnail to edit the smart object.

Step 5

Select the Horizontal Type Tool (T) and using any font type your text. Here I will be using the "Heavitas" font.

Step 6

Go to File > Save and close the Smart Object Document.

Step 7

With the smart object layer selected, go to Filter > Blur > Gaussian Blur. Set the Radius to 2 pixels and click OK.

Step 8

Press Ctrl+J on your keyboard to duplicate the Smart Object layer.

Step 9

With the duplicated smart object layer selected, go to Filter > Blur > Radial Blur. Apply the following settings and click OK.

Step 10

In order to change the design colors, go to Layer > New Adjustment Layer > Gradient Map.

Step 11

Click on the gradient thumbnail to open the Gradient Editor.

Step 12

Lastly, change the gradient colors to your liking and click OK in the Gradient Editor window.

Some Final Notes:

Now that you know how to make a Light Burst Text Effect in Photoshop, you can edit the text text by editing the Smart Object and change the colors simply by changing the Gradient Map colors like in the following examples.