Text Quickie - WireFrame 3D Text

by Steve Tolley

This is a quick text effect tutorial on how to make a 3D wireframe effect, I will show you the basic principle of how to get the effect and will then leave you to experiment with the other letters,

What We Are Going To Achieve

Step 1 - New Document

As always create a new document any size thats suitable for you, and fill with a colour that you want (White works better for this effect)

Step 2 - Writing The Letter

First of all pick the text tool and make sure that your foreground/text colour is the same as your background so it is basically invisible, so dont worry that you dont see the letter but make sure that is in the layers tab,

Step 3 - Adding The Stroke (Blending Options)

We need to add a stroke to the letter so there is an outline to the letter, so we need to open up the blending options menu (double click the layer in the layers tab) and add the following stroke option:

Now you need to make the letter invisible but keep the outline so in the layers tab set the fill to 0% this means that the inner part of the letter is made invisible but the stroke it kept as it is:

When these 2 settings have been applied then you will have an outcome like below:

Step 4 - Create the 3D Effect

Now to make the 3D effect you need to make sure that you have the text layer selected and then press CTRL + J to duplicate the layer with the duplicated layer selected then press the down arrow and the right arrow a few times (down, right, down, right etc…) until you have something similar to below:

Now that we have this done we need to move onto the final step of the first letter:

Step 5 - Connecting The Two Layers

In order to make the text look 3D we need to connect all of the corners together, to do this we use the pen tool and make sure the top toolbar looks like this:

And also make sure that you foreground colour is the same as the stroke colour (#DDDDDD) and then create a new layer (CTRL + SHIFT + N) and then draw a line like below:

Top Left:

And then right click and choose “Stroke Path” this will make the path into a straight line:

Press CTRL + SHIFT + H to hide the path so that you have the same as above, now do the same on all of the other corners, you can do it all on one layer all you can make a seperate layer for each new path line so that they can be moved easier after, when you are done connecting all of the lines then you will have something similar to below:

So using these basic principles you can apply them to other letters and create cool words and a abit of difference to your text, using these steps I made the below:

It would be cool to see what you come up with so feel free to upload them to the Photoshop Tutorials Flickr Group and leave me a comment to say when you have uploaded one so people can comment on them,

And as always if you have any problems with this tutorial then don’t hesitate to leave me a comment or email me at: stevie489@googlemail.com and I will help you as much as I can…

Category : Text Effects
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Depth of Field Effect

by Steve Tolley

This tutorial shows you how to make a “Depth of Field Effect” in Photoshop this is where you pick something in an image that you want to “Stand Out” and then blur the background so the focal point of the image changes, really cool effect and can be used on any image.

Step 1: First of all get the picture that you want to edit and find the thing on the image that you want to make “Stand Out” when you have done this choose the Pen Tool and draw around the outline of the chosen object that you want to stand out as shown below:

Step 2: When this is done make sure the two ends of the path are connected and you should have the line of “crawling ants” around the selection, if like me there is something in front of your selection that you do not want to include in it then simply hold ALT and draw around the outline of that to subtract it from the selection as below:

Step 3: When this is done you have your selection ready, now press CTRL + Shift + I which inverts the selection to select everything outside of the original selection, now go to Filter > Blur > Gaussian Blur and set the blur to around 3 pixels (depends on image so adjust it so that it looks ok with your image) and press ok.

Step 4: Now we are nearly done, to finish simply choose the blur tool (raindrop shaped) and pick a decent brush size and go around the very edge of your selection so that the edges don’t seem to sharp or pointy

And there you go the simple way to make something stand out more from their background below is the comparison from the original image to the finished image:

Finished Image:

Original:

Category : Photo Effects
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How To Use The Extract Filter

by Steve Tolley

This Tutorial explains how to properly use the “Extract Filter” in Photoshop

Step 1: First of all get the image that you want to extract loaded up onto Photoshop, for this tutorials I am going to extract this Coca Cola Can from it’s background and place it on a black background.

Step 2: Next go to Filter > Extract and wait for the filter to load.

Step 3: This is where we start to extract the image first of all zoom into the image so you can clearly see the outline and set the brush size to a suitable size and then simply draw around the outline of the coke can so that there are no gaps.

Step 4: Now we can fill in the area which we want extracting to do this select the bucket/fill tool on the left hand toolbar and simply click inside of the drawn outline.

Step 5: Now press “OK” in the top right of the window and you should go back to the normal photoshop window, and if you did the last steps correctly you will have an image of a coke can without a background, if all done correct the edges will look fine, if not then you may find some discrepancies which can simply be erased.

Step 6: Finally fill in the background with a black colour and add some text to give you the final image.

Final Image:

Hope this has helped, if you have any problems with this tutorial then feel free to e-mail me or leave me a comment and I will respond ASAP

Category : The Basics
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Creating "Firey" Text In Photoshop

by Steve Tolley

This tutorial will show you how to create a firey text style using very simple techniques took me around 10 minutes to complete.

Step 1: First of all open up a new Photoshop document with the sizes: 600 width and 600 height as shown below:

Step 2: Next fill the background Black using the fill tool (Paint bucket)

Step 3: Now we need to add the text I am going to use the text “Photoshop” but you can use whatever text you want to.

Step 4: Now you need to duplicate the layer with the text on it (Ctrl + J) when this is done we need to hide the copied layer as we do not need it at the minute to do this click the “eye” next to the layer which will hide it for now.

Step 5: Now rasterize the original text layer to do this right click the layer and click on “rasterize type” this will change it to pixels instead of text.

Step 6: Next select both the background layer and the original text layer and right click and press “Merge visible” as shown below:

Step 7: Now we need to rotate the canvas in order to successfully the next filter, to do this click, Image > Rotate Canvas > 90 CW and this should rotate the canvas to the right.

Step 8: Now we need to add the wind effect to do this click Filter > Stylize > Wind when the menu pops up choose from the left and press ok, when it applies it press Ctrl + F twice this will repeat the process twice and give you bigger flames:

Step 8: When the wind has been applied then rotate the canvas back to normal to do this simply go to Image > Rotate Canvas > 90 CWW which should rotate it back to the original way:

Step 9: Next we need to add a gaussian blur to do this go to Filter > Blur > Gaussian Blur and set it to blur 2 pixels which should be ideal for the amount we need:

Step 10: Now go to Image > Adjustments > Hue/Saturation this will change the colour of the flames so they look firey, set it to the settings as shown below (make sure colorize is ticked) and then press ok:

Step 11: Now duplicate this layer again by pressing Ctrl + J and then set it to Color Dodge as shown below and then right click on the new layer and click “merge down”:

Step 12: Now with the original layer still chosen go Filter > Liquify here is where we make the flames of the fire, simply set the brush size to whatever you want and make the flames by clicking and dragging slightly left to right all the way up on each flame so that you get the result you want, this is where you can customize the size of the flames you want, as mine is shown below:

Step 13: Now unhide the copied text layer from earlier and right click and choose “blending options” this will open up a box and when this opens use the settings as shown below, when done click ok:

Step 14: And there you go a completed firey text effect:

If you had any problems with this tutorial then please dont hesitate to contact me by either leaving me a comment or send me an email to stevie489@googlemail.com

Category : Text Effects
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Creating 3D Text in Photoshop

by Steve Tolley

This tutorial is a simple but effective way to create 3D text using only Photoshop. Easy to follow tutorial with alot of detail, outcome is good and cathces the eye well!

Step 1: First of all open up a new Photoshop document with the sizes: 600 width and 600 height as shown below:

Step 2: Next fill the background Black using the fill tool (Paint bucket)

Step 3: Now we need to add the text I am going to use the text “Photoshop” but you can use whatever text you want to.

Step 4: Next we need to “Bulge” the text using the “Text Warp” tool as highlighted below:

Step 5: We then select bulge from the menu that appears and use the below settings:

And we should get the result as shown below:

Step 6: Next we need to duplicate the text layer so that we have two layers of text, but we need to hide the copied layer because we do not need to use that at the moment (so click the “eye” next to the layer which will hide it) now we need to group the visible layers so that the original text layer and the background layer are on one layer, to do this you need to go to Layer > Merge Visible alternatively you can press “Ctrl+Shift+E” which will do the same job. So that you are left with something that looks like the image below:

Step 7: With the Original layer (Background layer) selected go to Filter > Distort > Polar Coordinates and use the settings below:

Then click OK which will give you something that looks like the below image:

Step 8: Now go to Image > Rotate Canvas > 90 CW this will then rotate the canvas, then you need to go to Filter > Stylize > Wind and use the settings as shown in the below image:

After you press ok press Ctrl+F ten times which will repeat the wind filter ten times to give you something which looks like this:

Step 9: Now you need to rotate the canvas back to how it was before so go to Image > Rotate Canvas > 90 CCW which will give make the canvas rotate to its original position and now we need to reverse the Polar Coordinates so that it is how it was, so go to Filter > Distort > Polar Coordinates and choose Rectangular To Polar which will reverse the one that you did before, and you should end up with something like the below image (if not then check back to make sure that you have done everything ok up to now)

Step 10: Now comes the stage where we need to unhide the copied text layer so click where the eye was and it should reappear (but if you did the text in white you won’t be able to see it, so just change the colour of the text by highlighting it and changing the colour) and you should now see it like below:

Step 11: Now all we need to do to finish is add a few “Blending Options” to access them either double click on the layer itself or go to Layer > Layer Style > Blending Options once the window opens up use the below setting as shown and you should get the final outcome (I chose red but you can use any colour that you want to)

If you do all of this correctly then you should get something that looks like the image below:

Thank you for reading and I hope that this tutorial has helped you, if you have any problems with this then don’t hesitate to contact me, either leave a comment or send me an email to stevie489@googlemail.com and I will respond ASAP.

Category : Text Effects
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