Step 14: Select The Gradient Tool

Select Photoshop's Gradient Tool from the Tools panel:

Step 15: Choose A White To Black Gradient

With the layer mask selected (the mask thumbnail in the Layers panel will have a white highlight border around it letting you know it's selected), press the letter D on your keyboard to quickly reset Photoshop's Foreground and Background colors if needed, which sets the Foreground color to white and the Background color to black. Then right-click (Win) / Control-click (Mac) anywhere inside the document window to quickly open the Gradient Picker and choose the white to black gradient (top left corner - it's actually the Foreground to Background gradient) by clicking on its thumbnail. Press Enter (Win) / Return (Mac) when you're done to close out of the Gradient Picker:

Step 16: Select The "Reflected Gradient" Option

In the Options Bar along the top of the screen, click on the Reflected Gradient icon to change the style of gradient we're about to draw:

Step 17: Draw A Gradient On The Layer Mask

With the Reflected Gradient option selected, click anywhere along the horizontal center of the text to set the starting point for the gradient. Then hold down your Shift key and, with your mouse button still held down, drag straight up to the top of the text. Holding the Shift key as you drag makes it easier to drag straight upward:

Release your mouse button at the top of the text, at which point Photoshop draws the reflected gradient on the layer mask, leaving only the middle of the text completely visible, then gradually fading away towards the top and bottom of the letters, allowing the motion blur effect behind them to show through:

Step 18: Duplicate The Layer

Press Ctrl+J (Win) / Command+J (Mac) on your keyboard to quickly duplicate the layer:

This makes the glow effect more intense, giving the text more of a "ghostly" appearance:

You can increase the glow even more simply by duplicating the layer again. I'll press Ctrl+J (Win) / Command+J (Mac) to make another copy of the layer:

Things are definitely starting to look spooky at this point:

Step 19: Add A Hue/Saturation Adjustment Layer

As a final step, let's colorize the effect. Click on the New Adjustment Layer icon at the bottom of the Layers panel:

Choose Hue/Saturation from the list of adjustment layers that appears:

If you're using Photoshop CS4 or CS5, the controls and options for the Hue/Saturation adjustment layer will appear in the Adjustments Panel. For CS3 and earlier, a separate dialog box will open. First, select the Colorize option by clicking inside its checkbox. Then drag the Hue slider to select a color to use, and drag the Saturation slider to adjust the intensity of the color. I'm going to choose a ghostly green by setting my Hue value to 123, then I'll increase the Saturation value to 40:

For Photoshop CS3 and earlier users, click OK to close out of the dialog box when you're done. CS4 and CS5 users can leave the Adjustments Panel open. And with that, we're done! Here, after colorizing the text, is my final "ghostly blur" effect:

And there we have it!

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