Create a glowing circle in Photoshop6

[auntie]

Hi:

I'm a Photoshop beginner and need to create a glowing oval shape that matches the physics logo on the lower right of www.aps.org/
The text on top of this shape says "World Year of Physics 2005".
I tried using the gradient but could not get the same effect. I used a blue and white color for the gradient (radial).
And how do you get the gradations of blue around this oval?
The background color of the web page is #006699.
This will be a transparent gif.
I'm using Photoshop 6.
Could anyone give me guidance? Thanks very much!

[shady]

I'm no expert, but I would probably do the following:

1) Fill with background colour
2) Create a new layer
3) use the "ecliptical circular marquee tool" with fixed size and fill with white
4) Use layer blending options/effects (depends on your version I think) and add outer glow to it.

You can try other effects too, but this will give you a start!

Regards

[benihana]

yep shadys got it - outer glow layer style set quite large.

to save it to go into a webpage youll probably be best off using a .gif, with transparency on and setting the 'matte' colour to match the background of your page.

if you find saving like this results in banding instead of a smooth result, try using the noise filter (just a lttle) before saving

ben

[auntie]

Hi Shady and Ben:

Thanks for your tips. I was able to achieve a similar effect using outer glow and blur.

:)