Step 1: You will need a colored background, so begin by choosing that color. (Darker tones will accentuate the glowing effect.) Prepare your text in both solid and outline form. The solid should be the same color as your planned background, and the outline should be a bright, constrasting color. PSP note (versions 4-6): Most paint programs I've used will give you a text outline with a single click. With early versions of Paint Shop Pro, it's more complicated. Prepare your text then make a duplicate window. Make this text black on white. Select the text characters, then use IMAGE > SPECIAL EFFECTS > CHISEL. Set the number to 2-5 (you'll need to try it out because it will depend on the text you're working with). Choose either Background or Transparent; I've never found a difference between those myself. Click on OK, and your text should be outlined. The outline is not a single color, however, so use the Fill tool to make it a solid -- or decrease the colors to 2 (black and white), create a duplicate window, then increase the colors back to 16 million. Another method: Select your background, then choose SELECTION > MODIFY SELECTION > EXPAND by 2 (more, if your lettering is very large). Then, with your background color set to match the background of your image, use SELECTION > INVERT and EDIT > CUT. What remains should be an outline of your letters.

Step 2: Make the outline white (or another bright color that contrasts with the background color), then blur it as many steps as it takes to reach a softened appearance similar to the one shown here. (I'm using lime 0-255-0 against a black background.)

Step 3: Letting the background go transparent, paste your solid text onto the blurred outline and align it together so that the glow extends beyond the edges in all directions. That's it! You're done! This image was created in Windows Paintbrush following the Glow technique given here. This image was created with the plug-in program Eye Candy and its special Glow feature.

Variations: When your text color matches your background as above, the glow effect takes on a ghostly appearance, but Glow has other looks, too. For instance, what if your text color matched your outline color? What if, instead of pasting in the solid in Step 3, you used the Fill or Paint Bucket tool instead? With some experimentation, you're likely to find additional variations to this very simple but cool technique.