I’ve always wanted to know how to create beautiful realistic bubbles that look like they are glowing. So I opened up Photoshop and decided to do some experimenting. After some playing around I realised that with only a few simple steps it was possible to create very realistic bubbles with a beautiful surrounding glow! This tutorial will show you how its done!

1. Open up Photoshop and create a new document. It’s up to you what size, mine is pretty big and 1500 x 1064.  Fill your background with a dark brown color of #271717.

2. Then create a new layer and choose a lighter brown colour. Brush some random lighter areas onto your background. Your document should now look like this:

3. Create another layer and create some diagonal lines for the background in white. There are many different line patterns available on the web that you can download or you can just create your own. Set this layer to overlay at around %24 opacity.

4. On a new layer draw a large dark brown rectangle using the rectangle shape tool. It should cover pretty much th whole bottom half of the document and will become the floor. Double click on the layer so that the layer styles palette comes up. We are going to add a linear gradient overlay going from #271717 to #5d3a3a. Also add an outer glow with the settings: Size 188 and the blend mode set to colour dodge.

5. Now we are going to add the “Bubbles” text. Of course you dont have to do this step as its not really the main point of the tutorial. Create some text using a nice thick rounded font. Add the following layer styles:
Gradient Overlay with colours #dafbfc to #fb0891 and make the opacity stop at the pink end %0. Give the gradient overlay a blending mode of soft light and opacity to %63.
Bevel and Emboss:  Style Inner Bevel. Technique smooth, Depth 221, Direction Up, Size 7, Soften 8.
Inner Glow: Blend Mode Colour dodge, Choke 21, Size 14, Colour white.
Outer Glow: Blend Mode colour dodge, Opacity 48,  Spread 0, Size 27.
Finally set your bubbles text layer to colour dodge and the fill to %69 opacity.

Step 6. Now merge all your layers but DO NOT SAVE. After merging make a round selection using the elliptical marquee tool. Go edit - copy merged. Then press CMD+alt+z to undo until your layers are back to not being merged anymore and press CMD + J which will paste your round selection onto a new layer. Ok so it doesnt look like a bubble yet but up next is where the magic happens!

Step 7. Now we are going to add a few simple layer styles to our round selection layer we just created and with  a few simple layer styles will magically turn into beautiful bubbles! Here goes:
Gradient Overlay with colours #dafbfc to #fb0891 and make the opacity stop at the pink end %0. Give the gradient overlay a blending mode of soft light and opacity of %63.
Inner Glow: Blend Mode Linear, Opacity 70,  Choke 0, Size 84, Colour white.
Outer Glow: Blend Mode colour dodge, Opacity 68,  Spread 0, Size 120.
Inner Shadow: Blend Mode Soft Light, Opacity 52, Distance 34, choke 47. size 106.
Finally set your bubbles text layer to colour dodge and the fill to %69 opacity.

Step 8. Now all you have to do is duplicate your bubble layer as many times as you like, resize them and arrange them on your design! Simple as that!  You should end up with something like this: I added a slight fractal brush in the background for an extra effect but it’s not neccessary.

Here is the final result!

So there you have it!  Now you know how to add stunning glowing bubbles in photoshop!