This time in Fireworks tutorial, I will teach you how to create a colourful glowing light trail. This is rather a simple tutorial that can be performed in only 6 basic steps. So get ready to create something like this:
First, create a dark blank canvas in any size of your choice. It is not necessarily black. For a better result, you can use a dark background image as well. But in this tutorial, I will use a blank black canvas.
Second, draw above shape using the Pen Tool and play around with the points using Subselection Tool(A) to get a smooth curve on the outline.
Draw a few of them with various orientation and curves. While in this process, you may want to put a bright color for the outline and transparent [#FFFFFF] for the fill color to make easier for you to work on a dark background.
When you are done with your shape, remove the outline color and fill the shape with any bright color. I am using #FFFF00 for this first shape of mine.
Now, we want to work with the glow. From the Properties pane at the bottom, click the + button next to Filters > choose Shadow and Glow > choose Glow. From the Glow setting, set the value as shown in the following screenshot.
The values are not fixed - you can play around with it until you like what you see 
And yeah, it is better to choose the same color of the glow with the color of the shape itself.
Optionally, you can alter the coordination of the shape using the Distort tool. This will make your shape are coming from the very back towards the screen - yeah right . But hey, you can try out.
As you create more and more shapes, combine them all - play around with the layers position. If you look at the green shape, I used the distortion method - making it thicker at one end and thinner on the other. Yes, you can manually do that, but thats another alternative.
Finally as you can see in the final outcome, I added few small circles around the shapes to enhanced the area.
Good luck!
Update: Here is the source file of the final result.
Fireworks layered PNG.
27 comments — Post a comment ↓
inflame254 —
01 Dec 07 / #nice tutorial~
Corey Dutson —
03 Dec 07 / #Simple tutorial and cute result. Good job!
flisterz —
03 Dec 07 / #thanks guys
syuxx —
05 Dec 07 / #umm, klau guna photoshop dpt jugak kan??
just a bit messy on the colour lah.
hurrm, btw what is the function of fireworks??
hope u can answ me.
draxter —
10 Dec 07 / #Love the image presentation. The result are nice. Tapi aku rasa photoshop lagi best glowing effectnya, aku tak pernah cuba Fireworks
adib. —
11 Dec 07 / #kalau org bt gmbar yg kete gerak laju gune skill yg camnih jugak ke??
shadowX_19 —
11 Dec 07 / #nice tutorial… tapi kalo ditambah lagi glow kat keliling tu aku rase lagi bertambah menarik n tambahkan sedikit blur effect. blur effect tu maskingkan dalam layer tail tu. dalam fireworks leh wat camtu ke.? raseye dlm photoshop jekan..? tu pendapat aku je…
flisterz —
11 Dec 07 / #@draxter: yeah maybe PS nye effect lg best
@adib : eh rasenye x. tu gune cara yg lg advanced kot.
@shadowX_19 : oh boleh je dlm firework tp aku x buat kat situ. ehe
Rich —
05 May 08 / #Awsome awsome awsome! Given me an idea and a very useful tutorial for wavy lines, thanks!
tamt —
14 May 08 / #this is really cool!
Yoi —
20 May 08 / #It looks nice, but I could create the same graphic in Illustrator with a pen tool that gives me better control of points and beziers.
Where’s the animation part?
Wallikson —
05 Jul 08 / #Uaall…mui bien….
I fron Brazil….
Cara muito bom…
vallews pela dica…
abraço…
By…By…
Raul —
23 Jul 08 / #Very Good!!!
turkishinet —
31 Aug 08 / #Great tutorial.
But I cant do like this
I must work hard
asdf —
19 Sep 08 / #This tutorial sucks.
PTC Master —
27 Sep 08 / #Thanks very much, I’ll try this
PTC Master —
25 Oct 08 / #thanks!
brook —
11 Nov 08 / #fire works are very entertaining.
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Brook
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Alf —
15 Nov 08 / #Very nice tutorial. I’ve just tried to do the same (or a nice similar one) with Fireworks 4.
Cool!!! Thank you!!! A new client of my web design agency (Uuuu!!!) could be satisfied with this technique on his new website.
Thank you (sorry for my bad English: I’m italian)
StyleDesigns —
26 Dec 08 / #nice tutorial
semanur —
02 Feb 09 / #Türkçesi yok mu bunun?:(
munazara —
20 Feb 09 / #very good, thanks
Simon —
13 Mar 09 / #Thanks for the tutorial - its a pretty funky look. What font do you use in this one? Its pretty funky.
Keith D —
16 Apr 09 / #Great piece of work… I’m certainly goung to use this somewhere in the future.
We need all the fireworks tutorials we can get.
Thanks for sharing.
Keith D
balram —
06 May 09 / #bhut hi achha hai ..par agar yeh kam nahi kiya toh tum log dekh lena samge..isay majak muth sumaj na…
balram —
06 May 09 / #i love you reegan thanx 4 telling me about this website…luv u hunni
julie —
06 May 09 / #nice tutorial…..thanx:)