ps tutorials

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HOW TO CREATE A WRITING IN THE SAND EFFECT IN PHOTOSHOP

September 25, 2012 by Senior Editor in Learn Photoshop

This tutorial will show you how to create a realistic writing in the sand effect in Photoshop.

01. Open a picture with a sand. It can be any color or type of sand just as long as its a sand or any type of grain.

02. Now go to the Channels view and select the blue channel only. Then right click on it and choose Duplicate

layer.

03. Be sure the duplicate channel is selected and that you are still in the Channel view. Now go to Filter > Blur >

Gaussian Blur and add a very small amount of blur. Press Ok.
http://photoshoptutorials.wizapps.org/apps/author/senior-editor/http://photoshoptutorials.wizapps.org/apps/category/learn-photoshop/http://photoshoptutorials.wizapps.org/apps/wp-content/uploads/2012/09/Tutorial-180-3.jpghttp://photoshoptutorials.wizapps.org/apps/wp-content/uploads/2012/09/Tutorial-180-2.jpghttp://photoshoptutorials.wizapps.org/apps/wp-content/uploads/2012/09/Tutorial-180-1.jpghttp://photoshoptutorials.wizapps.org/apps/author/senior-editor/http://photoshoptutorials.wizapps.org/apps/category/learn-photoshop/


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04. Now go to File > Save As and save the duplicate channel as a psd file somewhere where you can locate it.

05. Now select all the channels again by clicking on the RGB channel. Then move back to the Layers window. Now

take the Type Tool.

06. Write your word, either in black or in darker sand color. Be sure to place and size your text exactly as you

would want to since next step will rasterize the layer and now further changes cannot be made to the written text. If

all is good, go to Filter > Distort > Displace. Click Yes if asked if rasterize the layer.
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07. Be sure all the options are as shown below. Then if you click OK, Photoshop wants you to locate a file. Locate

the displace.psd that you saved earlier and open it.

08. Now the edges of your text should be all sandy. To give more depth to the text, go to Layer > Layer Style >Color Overlay and add bit darker shade of your sand and set a different blend mode to it. Then move to Inner

Shadow tab and add a small inner shadow to your text. Press Ok.
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09. And your writing in the sand is complete!

Tags:How to Create a Writing in The Sand Effect in Photoshop, How to Use Displace

This Photoshop tutorial

will show you how to

create text with a flowertheme.

Step 1.Start of by making a new photoshop document, with dimensions of 200x200 and a white background.Create some large, thick, light green (DBF5AD) text, preferably with rounded corners. I used Arial Black200 pt for this, so I had to round off the the corners (image b).

a) b)
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Step 2.

Make a selection using the text and then fill it with a darker green (2F8B48) on a newlayer. Now feather (select > feather) and contract (select > modify > contract) the

selection by 7 pixels, and then delete the area that's selected (image b).

a) b)

Step 3.Create a layer below the first 2 and then make a selection using the text again.Expand the selection by 3 pixels and then fill it with a lighter green 3. (A8CFAF).

Step 3.

This is the 2nd part of the Photoshop tutorial to create text with flowers. Next, zoom in to200% and create a new layer and a path layer. Use the pen tool to create a curve (image a)

and then drag the top segment of the directional line to the center (image b). Create a secondcurve, complete the path, make a selection using it, and then fill the layer with dark green(2B8E00).

a) b) c) d)

Step 4.Feather the selection by 2, contract it by 1 and then fill it with a lighter green (B4FF92). So that's

the first stalk create that we'll duplicate later, but first we're going to create some flowers. So,zoom in to 300%, create a new layer and then select the gradient tool. Set it to linear gradient,

the foreground to orange (F0A400) and the background to yellow (FFEB42). Drag the gradient toolfrom the top of the selection to about 3/4 of the way down of it (image b). Duplicate the gradientlayer, flip it vertically (edit > transorm > flip vertical) and then place them like in image c). Mergethe 2 layers together and then duplicate them (image d).


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a) b) c) d)

Step 5.Rotate the duplicate by 90 degrees (image a), merge them together and then duplicate it once

more (image b). Rotate the duplicate by 45 degrees and then merge them together (image c). Ona new layer, create a peach (FFC8D4) circle in the center, and then contract the selection by 2pixels.

a) b) c) d)

Step 6.Set the foreground to dark orange (EA682F) and the the background to a lighter orange(FF965B). Fill the selection and then add noise (filter > noise > add noise), setting it touniform and 17%. Then go to Flower Text Photoshop Tutorial Part 3

Step 6.This is the 3rd part of the Photoshop tutorial to create text with flowers. Next, make a new layerand then create a bright yellow cirlce underneath the peach circle. Nudge the selection to the right

a bit and then delete the area selected. Duplicate the resulting shape and then rotate it by 180degrees.

a) b) c) d)
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Step 7.Merge the 2 shapes together, duplicate it and then rotate it by 90 degrees (image a). Merge them

together, and then duplicate it once more. Rotate it by 45 degrees, giving you something like inimage b). Make a selection of the main flower part, create a new layer underneath it, and then fill

it with a dark orange (E68D00). Zooming out, you should have something like in image c). Mergeall the flower layers together, duplicate it and then resize it to 70% using the transform tool.

a) b) c) d)

Step 8.

Make a few more duplicates of the original one, and reduce them to 50% and 20%. Tocreate the orange version, just adjust the hue (image > adjustments > hue/saturation) by-16. And that brings us to the end of this Photoshop tutorial!

Colorful Light Burst Text In Photoshop

Step 1: Open A New Photoshop Document

Open a new document in Photoshop by going up to the File menu and choosing New, or by using the

keyboard shortcut, Ctrl+N (Win) / Command+N (Mac). You can choose your own width and height for your

document, but if you want to follow along, I chose the 640480 size from the list of available presets to keep

things simple. Ive also left my Resolution value set to its default of72 pixels/inch. Since Im creating this text

effect for the web, it makes no difference what I set the resolution value to, so the default value is fine:


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Create a new document in Photoshop. To follow along, use the 640480 preset size.

Step 2: Add Your Text

With your new blank document open, grab the Type tool from the Tools palette or by pressing T on your

keyboard. Make sure blackis selected as your foreground color. If it isnt, just press D on your keyboard to reset it

to black. Choose your font in the Options Bar at the top of the screen. Thick, heavy fonts work best for this effect.

Then, go ahead and enter your text. Im going to use Impact, and Ill type the words LIGHT BURST:

Choose a thick, heavy font, and with black as your foreground color, enter your text.

Step 3: Resize Your Text With Free Transform

With your text layer selected in the Layers palette, use the keyboard

shortcut Ctrl+T (Win) / Command+T (Mac) to bring up the Free Transform box and handles around your

text. Hold down Shift+Alt (Win) / Shift+Option (Mac) and drag out any of the corner handles to make your

text larger and fill up more of the document area. Holding Shift constrains the text proportions, and holding

Alt/Option resizes the text from the center:

Resize the text with Photoshops Free Transform command.

Make sure to still leave plenty of room around the text for our light burst effect. Press Enter (Win) / Return (Mac)

when youre done to accept the transformation.Step 4: Rasterize Your Text

Were going to be applying several filters to our text, but Photoshop doesnt allow us to do that without first

rasterizing it, which simply means to convert it into pixels. So again with the text layer selected, go up to the Layer


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menu at the top of the screen, choose Rasterize, and then choose Type. This will convert our text into pixels.

It will still look the same in the document window, but in the Layers palette, the Type layer will now be a regular

layer:

After rasterizing the text, the Type layer in the Layers palette becomes a normal layer.

Step 5: Add A Selection Around Your Text And Save ItCtrl-click(Win) / Command-click(Mac) directly on the thumbnail preview area of the text layer in the Layers

palette to quickly load a selection around your text:

Ctrl-click (Win) / Command-click (Mac) directly on the text thumbnail in the Layers palette.

Your text will now have a selection around it:

The text is now selected.

With the text selected, go up to the Select menu at the top of the screen and choose Save Selection. When

theSave Selection dialog box appears, just click OK. Theres no need to name it or make any changes to the

options.

Once youve saved your selection, press Ctrl+D (Win) / Command+D (Mac) to deselect your text.Switch over to yourChannels palette for a moment (its grouped in beside the Layers palette) and youll see

your selection saved as a new channel named Alpha 1 at the very bottom. Well be coming back here a bit later to

load our selection again:


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The selection is now saved as a new channel, Alpha 1, in Photoshops Channels palette.

Step 6: Use Fill To Fill Your Text Layer With White And Set The Blend Mode To Multiply

Switch back to your Layers palette once again, and with the text layer selected, go up to the Edit menu at the top

of the screen and choose Fill, or press Shift+F5 on your keyboard to quickly bring up Photoshops Fill dialog

box. When the dialog box appears, set the Contents to White and change the Blending Mode to Multiply:

Photoshops Fill dialog box.

Click OK when youre done. Nothing will seem to have happened in your document window, but if you look at your

text layers thumbnail in the Layers palette, youll see that all of the empty space around the text has now been

filled with white, while leaving the text black thanks to that "Multiply" mode.

Step 7: Apply The Gaussian Blur Filter To The Text

Go up to the Filter menu at the top of the screen, choose Blur, and then choose Gaussian Blur. When the

Gaussian Blur dialog box appears, enter a Radius value of about 4 pixels and click OK to apply a slight blurringto the text:

Apply the Gaussian Blur filter to the text.


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Heres the text after applying Gaussian Blur:

The text is now blurred slightly.

Step 8: Apply The Solarize Filter To The Text

With the text layer still selected, go back up to the Filter menu and this time choose Stylize, and then

chooseSolarize. This will turn the document black, and your text will appear as a white stroke:

The image after applying the Solarize filter.

Step 9: Lighten The Text With Levels

The text is looking a little dark, so lets lighten it. Use the keyboard shortcut Ctrl+L (Win) / Command+L (Mac)

to bring up Photoshops Levels command, and drag the white point slider on the right in towards the left until you

reach the right edge of the histogram:

With the Levels dialog box open, grab the white point slider on the right and drag it to the right edge of the

histogram to brighten the text.

Click OK. The text will now appear much brighter:


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The text is now much brighter after applying Levels.

Step 10: Make A Copy Of The Text Layer

We need to make a copy of the text layer at this point, so to do that, with the text layer selected, use the keyboard

shortcut Ctrl+J (Win) / Command+J (Mac), which will add a copy of the layer above it in the Layers palette:

The Layers palette now showing both the text layer and the copy above it.

Make sure the copy of the text layer is selected because all of these next steps are to be done on the copy. We

wont be touching the original again until near the end.

Step 11: Apply The Polar Coordinates Filter To The Text

Go back up to the Filter menu, and this time choose Distort, and then Polar Coordinates. Were going to

send our text to the North Pole. Alright, no were not. What we are going to do is make it look very strange. When

the Polar Coordinates dialog box appears, select the Polar To Rectangular option at the very bottom and then

click OK:

Photoshops Polar Coordinates dialog box.

Your text will now look very strange indeed:


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The text after applying the Polar Coordinates filter.

Step 12: Rotate The Canvas 90 Degrees Clockwise

Go up to the Image menu at the top of the screen, select Rotate Canvas, and then choose 90 CW to

rotate the canvas 90 degrees clockwise:

Rotate the canvas 90 degrees clockwise.

Step 13: Invert The Image

Use the keyboard shortcut Ctrl+I (Win) / Command+I (Mac) to invert the image, so black becomes white and

white becomes black:

Invert the image with Ctrl+I (Win) / Command+I (Mac).

Step 14: Apply The Wind Filter Three Times

Go back up to the Filter menu once again, choose Stylize, and then choose Wind. When the Wind filters

dialog box appears, make sure Method is set to Wind and Direction is set to From the Right:


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Photoshops Wind filter.

Click OK to apply the Wind filter once. Then press the keyboard shortcut Ctrl+F (Win) / Command+F (Mac)

twice to apply the same filter two more times.

Step 15: Invert The Image Again

Press Ctrl+I (Win) / Command+I (Mac) to invert the image once again:

Invert the image once again using Ctrl+I (Win) / Command+I (Mac).

Step 16: Apply The Wind Filter Three More Times

With the image inverted, press the keyboard shortcut Ctrl+F (Win) / Command+F (Mac) three more times to

apply the filter to the image three more times:

Apply the Wind filter to the image three more times.

Step 17: Brighten The Image Again With Levels

We need to brighten the image again using Levels, but this time, well let Photoshop do the work for us by

usingAuto Levels. To do that, press Shift+Ctrl+L (Win) / Shift+Command+L (Mac) to apply the Auto

Levels command to the image, which will brighten it up:

Apply the Auto Levels command to brighten the image.

Step 18: Rotate The Canvas 90 Degrees Counterclockwise

Go back up to the Image menu at this point, choose Rotate Canvas once again, and this time choose 90

CCWto rotate the canvas back to the way it was originally:


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Rotate the canvas 90 CCW.

Step 19: Apply The "Polar Coordinates" Filter Again

Go back up to the Filter menu again, choose Distort, and then choose Polar Coordinates. This time

choose theRectangular to Polar option and click OK:

Apply Polar Coordinates again, this time choosing Rectangular to Polar.

Your image should now look something like this:

The image after applying the Polar Coordinates filter a second time.

Step 20: Set The Layer Blend Mode To "Screen"

Go up to the blend mode options in the top left of the Layers palette and change the blend mode of the text copylayer from Normal to Screen by clicking on the down-pointing arrow and selecting "Screen" from the list:

Change the blend mode of the text copy layer to Screen.


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This reveals the original text layer beneath it:

The original text layer is now visible as well.

Step 21: Apply A Gradient Fill Layer To Add Color

Click on the New Fill Or Adjustment Layer icon at the bottom of the Layers palette:

Click the New Fill Or Adjustment Layer icon.

And select Gradient from the list:

Select a Gradient fill layer.

When the Gradient Fill dialog box pops up, click inside the gradient preview area at the top:

Click inside the gradient preview area.

This will bring up the Gradient Editor dialog box. Click on the gradient swatch in the top left, the black to

whitegradient first, and this will make sure that both colors on either side of the gradient have their opacity set to

100%:


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Select the black to white gradient swatch in the top left to make sure both colors are set to 100% opacity first.

Then set your gradient colors to whatever you like. Ive set the color on the left to a reddish-orange, and the color

on the right to a yellowish-orange:

Set your gradient colors.

Exit out of the gradient dialog boxes once youve chosen your colors.

Step 22: Change The Blend Mode Of The Gradient Fill Layer To Color

With the Gradient fill layer selected, go back to the blend mode options in the top left of the Layers palette and

change the layers blend mode to Color:

Change the blend mode of the Gradient fill layer to Color.

The image is now colorized with the colors from the gradient:

The gradient colors are now applied to the image.

Step 23: Apply A Radial Blur To The Original Text Layer

Were done with the text copy layer at this point. Were going to finish off the last few steps by working on the

original text layer, so click on it in the Layers palette to select it. Then go up to the Filter menu, choose Blur,

and then choose Radial Blur:


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Photoshops Radial Blur dialog box.

Set the Amount to about 65 pixels, the Blur Method to Zoom, and the Quality to Best, as circled above,

and then click OK to apply the filter to the original text:

The Radial Blur applied to the image.

Step 24: Load The Saved Text Selection

Only a couple of things left to do. First, switch over to yourChannels palette again like we did earlier. Were

going to reload that selection we saved. To do that, simply right-click(Win) / Control-click(Mac) anywhere

on theAlpha 1 channel at the very bottom, which will load the selection back into the document window:

Right-click (Win) / Control-click (Mac) anywhere on the Alpha 1 channel to load the saved text selection.

Switch back to the Layers palette when youre done. The selection is now loaded in the image:

The selection now loaded into the image.

One thing left to do


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Step 25: Fill The Selection With Black

With the original text layer selected in the Layers palette and black still as your foreground color,

pressAlt+Backspace (Win) / Option-Delete (Mac) to fill the selection with black and finish the effect.

Press Ctrl+D (Win) / Command+D (Mac) to remove the selection, and youre done!

After all that, heres the final light burst text effect:

The final Light Burst effect.

And there we have it!

This Photoshop tutorial will showyou how to create text with a furrytexture.

Step 1.To begin with, make a new photoshop document, with dimensions of 200x200 and awhite background. Create some large thick text, using a font such as Arial Black.Select the Dune Grass brush, setting the size to 36, and then set the foreground to4E5500 and the background to E9EBCE. Make a new layer and then start to create

some dune grass (image b). Drag the brush left and right until you have somethinglike in image c).

a) b)

Step 2.To begin with, make a new photoshop document, with dimensions of 200x200 and awhite background. Create some large thick text, using a font such as Arial Black.Select the Dune Grass brush, setting the size to 36, and then set the foreground to4E5500 and the background to E9EBCE. Make a new layer and then start to create


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some dune grass (image b). Drag the brush left and right until you have something

like in image c).

a) b)

Step 3.Rotate the layer 90 degrees counter clockwise (edit > transform > rotate 90 CW),moving it over the text.

Step 3.This is the 2nd part of the Photoshop tutorial to create text witha furry texture. Next, duplicatethe 1st layer (image a), flip it horizontally (edit > transform > flip horizontal), and move it sothat it's slightly overlapping the first layer (image b). Use the eraser to delete the rough edgeof the 2nd layer (image c).

a) b) c)

Step 4.

Make a another duplicate of the 1st layer and then roate it clockwise, moving it like in image a).Delete the excess, on the left of this layer (image b). Make another copy of the 1st layer and flip it

horizontally (edit > transform > flip horizontal), as shown in image c).

a) b) c)

Step 5.Next, rotate it counter clockwise and then place it on the top of the letter. Make a duplicate of thislayer, rotate it by 180 degrees and place it like in image b). Use the eraser to delete the rough


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part (image c).

a) b) c)

Step 6.

Watercolor Text

Step 1

Watercolor is one of those mediums that can be difficult to replicate digitally, but with a little practice andexperimentation I think youll find it can be rather fun. This tutorial will be based around creating a text effect, butthis technique works just as well when creating paintings in Photoshop.

Lets begin with a new document, mine is 540300 at 72ppi for those of you playing along at home. Since by defaultPhotoshop locks the original Background layer in any new document, lets start by double clicking on the layer tobring up the New Layer dialog. Change the name in the dialog from Layer 0 to Background and click OK. This

will effectively unlock the Background layer and make it a normal, workable layer.

Finally, just delete the blacktext that we created at the

start, and that's the end ofthis Photoshop tutorial!
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Step 2

The reason we had to unlock the Background layer is because we need to add a Layer Style to it, which isntpossible if the layer is locked. This Background layer is going to be the watercolor paper which well be painting onlater in the tutorial.To add the layer style, lets go ahead and double click to the right of the layers name in the layers palette to bringup the Layer Styles dialog window (you can also access this dialog by Command-Clicking (PC: Right-Clicking) onthe layer and choosing Blending Options from the menu). Inside the Layer Styles dialog box choose the PatternOverlay option from the list on the left. Be sure to click on the words and not just the checkbox. Just clicking the

checkbox will apply default Pattern Overlay settings, but clicking on the text will open the Pattern Overlay optionssection of the Layer Styles window.

Click on the pattern swatch to bring up the Pattern Picker. We want to load the Artists Surfaces pattern set, so clickon the little circle with the arrow in the upper right hand corner of the Pattern Picker and choose Artists Surfacesfrom the drop down menu. The pattern well be using here is "Wax Crayon on Sketchpad (150150 pixels,grayscale mode)", if you place your mouse over each swatch, the tool tip will appear to tell you what the swatch iscalled.

Use an Opacity setting of around 10% and a Scale of 50% then click OK to apply the layer style.

Step 3The Background layer should now have a slight texture visible. Be careful not to overstate the effect here,watercolor paper has a very subtle texture.

Step 4

Now lets place some text on the stage. Press the D key to reset the foreground color to black and then press T toinvoke the Type tool. Click on the stage and create your lettering. Choose a large bold font so youll have the mostroom to paint within. Using the text tool creates a new layer above the previous layer.


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Step 5

For the moment were done with the text layer we just created so lets temporarily turn it off by clicking the little eyeicon to the left of the layer thumbnail in the Layers palette.

Next create a new layer by clicking the Create New Layer icon at the bottom of the layers palette. Double click onthe new layers name and rename it Paint.

Step 6

Its now time to prepare our paint brush to create the watercolor effect. Start by pressing the B key to invoke theBrush tool. From the Brush Options bar at the top of Photoshop choose a brush that youd like to paint with. For thistutorial Im going to use a 35 pixel round soft edged brush which I chose from the default brushes in the Brushpicker. Set the brushes Blend mode to Multiply, the Opacity to 10-20% and the Flow to 50%.

Step 7

We need to set some additional properties for our brush, so lets open the Brushes palette by choosingWindow>Brushes from the main menu. In the Brush Tip area, set the Spacing to 1% (for this brush that seems tobe the most cohesive setting, if youve chosen a different brush this may vary).

Step 8

Choose Texture from the list and use the same settings and texture that we used to createourBackground layers texture.


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Step 9

Choose Other Dynamics and set the Opacity Jitter to around 100%, again this one is brush dependant. Then checkthe Wet Edges option (this option has no additional settings). Now the brush is ready to use and you can close the

Brushes palette if youd like.

Step 10

Since we really want to constrain the painting to the lettering we created on the text layer, lets load that layer as aselection by Command-Clicking (PC: Ctrl-Clicking) on the Text layers thumbnail in the layers palette. Notice thatthe Paint layer is still the selected working layer.

Step 11

Pick a nice dark color for your foreground color in the Tools palette and begin painting. Notice that the paint isconstrained to the selection and if you release your mouse and begin painting again it will add dimension to thewatercolor by showing overlapping brush strokes.


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(*note: If the "marching ants" around the selection bother you, simply press Command-H (PC: Ctrl-H) to hide them.The selection will still be active and you can bring it back by pressing the same keyboard shortcut again.)

Step 12

Try switching colors and overlapping your brush strokes until youre happy with the result. When youre done,release the selection by pressing Command-D (PC: Ctrl-D) to deselect.

Step 13

If youve ever looked at a watercolor painting up close, youve noticed that often the artist will have lightly sketcheda basic line drawing directly onto the paper before they began to paint. This little line art makes for a neat effect andits the reason weve kept our original text layer. Lets click on that original text layer in the layers palette to make itour working layer and click on the little empty box where the eye icon used to be to turn the layer back on.

Obviously we dont need the black color of the text, so lower the layers Fill opacity to 0%.

Step 14

Now lets open the Layer Styles dialog box for this layer (just like we did in Step 2) and this time were just going toadd a 1 pixel Stroke (outline) to the text as shown below. Once youve applied the stroke, click OK to commit theLayer Style.


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Step 15

Usually the artist wont have painted exactly within their pencil lines, so press V to invoke the Move tool and then

using the arrow keys on your keyboard (or by dragging with your mouse), move the outline just a touch so that itsjust offset from the painting. If you feel that the outline isnt dark enough for your tastes, you can always go backand darken it by applying a darker gray in the Stroke layer style.

Step 16

And there you have it, a nice little text effect using watercolors. Like I said in the beginning, this is one of thosetechniques that requires a little practice to get good at, and by experimenting with different brushes and variedsettings, you can get some really great results.

When I got finished I decided that my colors needed a little more pop so I added a Hue/Saturation adjustment layerto the top of the stack. If you download the .PSD file at the end of the lesson you can see exactly how that works.

Retro Text Photoshop TutorialThis tutorial will kind of be split into two parts, the second part starting at step 19.The first part will cover thecreation of the text and then editing this text in Photoshop. The first part will require Adobe Illustrator as well asPhotoshop. The second part covers adding the animation in through Photoshop, this will mean you have to havePhotoshop CS3 extended version as we will be using video layers. However there is ways round this if you can finda program to convert movie files into animated gifs. Firstly a good idea when starting any project is to think up acolor scheme or to find one on the internet, I tend to use this site to find color schemes so for this project Isearched for retro. Part of the reason why I wrote this tutorial was because gomedia have released a couple of

free sample motion packs which ought to be utilized and for people who dont know how to use them then this iswhat the tutorial covers. For this I will be using the Hooladanders pack which can be downloaded here.
http://www.colourlovers.com/http://www.gomedia.us/arsenal/freestuff.phphttp://www.gomedia.us/arsenal/freestuff.phphttp://www.colourlovers.com/http://www.gomedia.us/arsenal/freestuff.php


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Step 1Start by opening Adobe Illustrator, there are two reasons why we want to use Illustrator here rather thanPhotoshop, firstly we can create vector files which gives us more flexibility when we export things to Photoshop andsecondly there are a few nice things we can do in Illustrator which would take a while in Photoshop. Hit Ctrl+N tocreate a new document, I used a size of 800x600px but this doesnt matter as we are working with images that canbe enlarged infinitely. Now hit Ctrl+ to show the grid. Now the default grid should have 8 subdivisions, if yours isdifferent then go edit>preferences>guides & grid and change it. Next click on the view dropdown and make suresnap to grid is checked. Select the rectangle tool and draw a 22 rectangle, we will change the fill and stroke in thenext step.

Step 2With your rectangle still selected, go to the main toolbar and change the fill to one of the colors in your colorscheme and set it to no stroke like in the image below. If you were wanting an outline round your text you wouldhave to draw a line only at the left and right side of this rectangle for reasons that will become apparent later on.

Step 3Create four more of these rectangles, each with a different fill and a 1 subdivision space between each.

Step 4

Hit V to use the selection tool then drag a box round all five rectangles then hit F5 to bring up the brushes panel.Inside this click the new brush button and select new art brush. Now change the settings to mimic the ones shownbelow. It should be fairly obvious why we changed it from a horizontal to a vertical direction.


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Step 5Next I worked out a rough typeface I was going to use, we are not using a real font here but rather, creating a paththen stroking it with the brush we created. Below Ive shown the path I would make if I wanted to make a P, an Fand a C; the red lines being the first path and the green; the second path. From this you should be able to work outroughly how to create any letters. At the moment dont actually do this in Illustrator but maybe sketch out the kind ofletters you want. Ill show more details on how I created the letters in RETRO. The main points here were to makemost letters 1 major gridline in width and half a major gridline between the letters. Note that on the F, it extends 1minor gridline below, this is to acount for the extra width from the brush on letters like the C. If this doesnt make toomuch sense at the moment; dont worry Ill go through a full example in the following steps.

Step 6First I made a new layer, the plan was to have two layers as I needed two paths for some of the letters. This meantthat I could export it to Photoshop as two layers also. We will create all of the first layer (red) then afterwards createthe second (green). Hit P to select the pen tool, the pen tool in Illustrator works in the same way as in Photoshop.We dont want any bezier curves so click once at each point and dont drag the mouse. Draw this shape in yourdocument; starting from the lower left point. We have to start at the right end or else the colors wont match up whenwe add layer 2.

Step 7Hit V then click on the path and a bounding box should appear. In the main toolbar make sure we have no stroke orfill then just click on our brush in the brushes panel and it should look like the image below. If for example our brushwas the wrong size we could click the small button to the left of new brush and change the size but since we set itat 20% already we should be fine.

Step 8Now for quick bit of maths; go edit>preferences>guides & grid and take note of the gridline every: number, now

divide this number by 4, mine was at 72px so I got 18. This number is because we are going to round the cornersand want the radius to be equal to two of the minor gridlines; the reason for this is obvious if you look at theexamples of the letters I used but if you were to use different letters you could make it more or less rounded. Okayto round the corners, with the leter still selected, go effect>stylize (illustrator)>round corners and set it to the valueyou calculated.


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Step 9Do the same for the other letters, so all my paths looked like the image below. You can either do the letters one ata time or create all the paths then add the styles to all of them at the same time. The image below that shows thecompleted first layer of the letters.

Step 10Now for the second layer, do exactly the same as for the first, In green is the paths I used for the second layer, I

then added the same styling to achieve a result like the one below. Note that here you could always just copy the Rto save creating it again. You should have three layers; one with the brush shape in it, another with the first layer ofour text (red) which well call T1 and another with our second layer of text (green) which well call T2.

Step 11Create a new document in Photoshop; since these are vectors you can make it any size but I used 900x300px as Ienvisioned it as a good idea for a website header. Now in Illustrator, hide T2 then drag a selection on over the textthen copy and paste it into Photoshop as a smart object if possible, if not then paste it as pixels and ignore the nextbit. Hit Ctrl+T then change the height and width to 150%. Now do exactly the same with T1, hiding the T1 inIllustrator, then alaign it with the other layer. Below Ive only shown one letter but thats only because Ill bedemonstrating the techniques on this letter first.


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Step 15Do this for any other letters that have two layers so for mine I had to do it to E.T, Note that after youve refined theselection you dont want want to make another mask so instead select the mask then hit D to reset the foregroundand background colors then hit Alt+Backspace to fill the selection black. Alt+Backspace is a shortcut for fillingsomething with the foreground color and is quicker than going edit>fill or Shift+F5.

Step 16Now you can move certain parts of your text to get the spacing right. Lastly select T2 and hit Ctrl+E to merge it withT1 then right click and convert to a smart object. Below Ive shown the finalized text.

Step 17This next part shows how I created the background and is optional as Im sure you can think of much more creative

thing to use for a background. Well firstly I pasted in an Image of cardboard then desaturated it.

Read more at http://photoshoptutorials.ws/photoshop-tutorials/text-effects/retro-text/#A2SDfCDooH0AgUB8.99

Step 18Next I made a very dark radial gradient then set it to 75% multiply.

Step 19Now go layer>video layer>new video layer from file and choose one of the videos you downloaded. Now gowindow>animation to bring up the animation panel. You will now have what looks like a histogram of the time, allexcept one of the layers should have an infinite time, the one that doesnt is your video layer and should be at thetop. Move the time slider to the end of this layer, see the image below for reference. You will see that the animationwill move, the reason we moved the slider to the end was because if you watch it you will see that the last 10seconds include every part of the animation.
http://photoshoptutorials.ws/photoshop-tutorials/text-effects/retro-text/#A2SDfCDooH0AgUB8.99http://photoshoptutorials.ws/photoshop-tutorials/text-effects/retro-text/#A2SDfCDooH0AgUB8.99http://photoshoptutorials.ws/photoshop-tutorials/text-effects/retro-text/#A2SDfCDooH0AgUB8.99http://photoshoptutorials.ws/photoshop-tutorials/text-effects/retro-text/#A2SDfCDooH0AgUB8.99http://photoshoptutorials.ws/photoshop-tutorials/text-effects/retro-text/#A2SDfCDooH0AgUB8.99


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Step 20Now hit Ctrl+T to enter free transform mode, a warning should pop up just press convert and it should change to asmart object. Next move, rotate and scle it then put it above part of your text, here I put it above the first R.

Step 21Now we are going to mask it, I used similar techniques to what we used when masking the letters. Note that whenyou mask a video layer it does this in every frame. Ctrl+click on the text layer to make a selection then get thepolygonal lasso tool out, hold Alt+Shift to go to intersect mode then draw roughly round the part you want to hidebehind the letters like shown below; the purple line being the selection I made.

Step 22Now mask the video layer in exactly the same way as in step 14 and 15. Do this for some other parts of theanimation.

Step 23Right click on the video layer then go blending options, thats right you can add layer styles to a video. Use thesettings shown below. Make sure that Layer Mask Hides Effects is checked as this will make the shadow more

accurate because the shadow wont follow the layer mask at all. For the color overlay, just select the color that theanimation merges into with the eyedropper, so here mine merged into the green line.


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Step 24Do exactly the same with the other two movie files and just copy and paste the layer styles by right clicking on thelayers then change the color overlay. They should vaguely resemble the image below.

Step 25Try now playing your animation by clicking the rewind button then the play button in the animation panel.

Step 26Theres a few things you can do with this file, you could save it as an animated gif, export it to flash or save it as amovie file. Here I saved it as a gif by going file>save for web & devices. Depending on what you want to do with thefile you can choose your settings. I knew I was going to upload it to this site so wanted it quite low quality, I alsofound that by cranking the lossy value up you get a grainy effect and a smaller file, I liked this effect so kept thelossy at about 85% then set the colors to 64. Below Ive included my final layers panel and also the unanimatedimage. You may notice that the colors are different here this is because I added a hue/saturation adjustment layer

at the top of the layer stack.


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GRAFFITI WITH PHOTOSHOP

Step 1Find yourself a nice photo of a wall to put your logo on (i found this image on the internet with Google Images).Every image is suitable if there is a suitable structure (no smooth walls!).

Step 2Place the logo you want to use in a new layer. The logo has to be a pixel-based image (no fonts, paths andshapes) because in the next step we will apply a "perspective transfer" which requires the layer to be pixel-based.

Step 3

Select "perspective transform" in the edit-menu en change the aspects of the logo that it fits the perspective of thewall. When you mak a "perspective transform" the selection you're transforming gets a bounbing box. You can usethe lines of this bounding box to align the logo with the wall.

Step 4The logo was just a bit to wide, but thats no problem. You can adjust this with the normal transform tool (CTRL+T).Make it a bit smaller so it will fit nicely in the wall. If the perspective of the logo doesn't look realistic, redo theprevious steps, because the realism of this is the most important.
http://images.google.nl/images?svnum=10&hl=nl&lr=&q=muur&btnG=Zoekenhttp://images.google.nl/images?svnum=10&hl=nl&lr=&q=muur&btnG=Zoekenhttp://img.dreamdealer.nl/dd/graffiti/stap3.jpghttp://img.dreamdealer.nl/dd/graffiti/stap2.jpghttp://img.dreamdealer.nl/dd/graffiti/stap1.jpghttp://images.google.nl/images?svnum=10&hl=nl&lr=&q=muur&btnG=Zoeken


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Step 5After this, put the blending mode of the logo layer to "overlay":

The result:

Step 6The logo still has sharp edges and looks more like a sticker than a graffiti drawing. To make this a bit more realisticwe are going to blur the edges a bit. To blur only the edges, but not the logo, you'll have to make a copy of thelayer and place it under te original logo.
http://img.dreamdealer.nl/dd/graffiti/stap6.jpghttp://img.dreamdealer.nl/dd/graffiti/stap4.jpg


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Step 7The, blur the copied layer with a "Gaussian Blur" with a value of 5,0 pixels. The gaussian blur is found in the filter-menu.

Step 8At last, to improve the realism, use the eraser tool to erase the logo where the wall is worn down.

REFINE

If you like the vague version of step 5 more, but with the blurred edges, you can select the blurred layer and click(while holding CTRL) on the thumbnail of the original logo layer. This way you'll select the outlines of the originallayer. If you've done this, press DELETE to delete the selected part from the blurred layer.

To make it all even more realistic, you can place another graffiti (a more worn down one) on the wall of erase morefrom the logo to make it look more worn down.

Vanity License Plate

In this Photoshop tutorial I'll show you how to create a custom vanity license plate using a few basic Photoshop tools a piece ofreference material and some creative layer stylings.
http://pshero.com/photoshop-tutorials/graphic-design/vanity-license-platehttp://img.dreamdealer.nl/dd/graffiti/stap9.jpghttp://img.dreamdealer.nl/dd/graffiti/stap8.jpghttp://pshero.com/photoshop-tutorials/graphic-design/vanity-license-plate


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Step 1

Open a new file (mine is 540300 at 72ppi). It is important to note that although the size of the document doesntmatter, you will need to adjust the layer styles we apply accordingly if you choose to play along at home. If youveread many of my other tutorials youll know that anytime I am trying to create a real object, I like to have a piece ofreference to work from, so Ive inset my example in the Step 1 graphic.

Im going to fill the background with a pretty radial gradient ( #788e9e to #263744) because well be first drawing ina light gray and I want to be able to see what Im doing. You can fill the background with any color you like

except purple.

(*note: If youre an 8 year old girl, you are of course the exception to the purple rule and you should use it to yourlittle hearts content.)

Step 2

Create a new layer by pressing the Create New Layer button at the bottom of the Layers palette and renameitPlate. Press the U key to switch to the Custom Shape tool and choose Rounded Rectangle from the menu at thetop of Photoshop, make sure that the Fill Pixels icon is checked and set the Radius to 20 pixels.(*note: If your layers palette isnt visible, activate it by choosing Window>Layers from the main menu.)

Step 3

Set your foreground and background colors to #e9e9e9 and #d2d2d2 respectively, then drag a nice rectangularshape onto the stage. I took my tape measure to the garage and figured out that the standard US license plate is a2:1 aspect ratio, so my rectangle is 500250 pixels.

(*note: If you want to see the size of your shape as you create it, open the Info window by choosing Window>Infofrom the main menu.)

Step 4

Since most license plates have a reflective quality that makes the surface shimmer, lets add that effect with a littlenoise. Select Filter>Noise>Add Noise from the main menu, set the Amount to 2% and make sure that Gaussianand Monochromatic are checked before hitting OK.


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Step 7

Lets now contract the selection again (Select>Modify>Contract) but this time lets go 10 pixels. Press Delete (PC:Backspace) to remove the area inside the selection and press Command-D to release the selection.

Step 8

Lower the Bevel layers Fill opacity (at the top of the Layers palette) to 0% making the black outline on the layermomentarily invisible, then add the following layer styles.


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Step 9

Its time to lay down the custom license plate letters (or numbers if you prefer). For this little number I tracked downa cool font called License Plate created by Dave Hansen. You can download it HERE or you can download thetutorial file at the end of the lesson and get both fonts used in this exercise.Press the T key to call up the Text tool, set the text color to #404d5e and for my example the font size is 135pt.

Step 10

Create a new layer beneath the text layer we just created by holding down the Command (PC: Ctrl) key whileclicking the Create New Layer icon at the bottom of the layers palette and rename it Text Bevel.With the Text Bevel layer now selected, Command-Click (PC: Ctrl-Click) on the text layer icon to load the text asa selection. Now expand the selection by 5 pixels by using the Select>Modify>Expand option in the main menu andfill the selection with any color (except purple of course). I used this very attractive turquoise color. Go ahead andCommand-D (PC: Ctrl-D) when youre done to release the selection.

Step 11

Just like we did with the Bevel layer in Step 8, drop the Text Bevels Fill opacity to 0% and the following BevelAnd Emboss layer style.
http://pshero.com/assets/tutorials/0040/LicensePlate.ttf.ziphttp://pshero.com/assets/tutorials/0040/LicensePlate.ttf.ziphttp://pshero.com/assets/tutorials/0040/LicensePlate.ttf.zip


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Step 12

If youve switched tools for some crazy reason, press the T key to get the Type tool back. Set the text color to anice shade of red like #c02922, switch to the font Mistral which you can downloadHEREor in the exercise files at

the end of the tutorial. This is the font which the California logo on the license plate is based on. (*note: Those pickyCalifornians took the liberty of changing things inside their text to make it cooler, but were not that fussy, so wellleave the nice Mistral font alone.)It should really go without saying that you can now click on the stage and type the word California unless ofcourse youre license plate is from a different state, and in that case, youre on your own. Lets also lower the Fillopacity of the California layer to around 80%.(*note: When youre done with the text, itd be a lovely idea to drag this layer to the top of the layers stack, just tokeep our previous text and its associated bevel next to each other.)

Step 13

With the California lettering firmly in place, lets click back to the Plate layer and punch some holes in it. Choose

the Elliptical Marquee tool, which is in the fly out menu for the Rectangular Marquee tool. If youre confused, pressthe M key to select it from the Tools palette, then click and hold on the tool until the fly out menu appears.Holding the shift key to constrain the selection to a perfect circle, click and drag a selection where your first holelives. Now just press Delete to remove the selected area and repeat for the other 3 holes. Because Im completelyanal, I actually resized my reference picture license plate to the same size as my document and cut the holesaccordingly. Im sure this surprises you because of the whole California font speech in Step 12 but Im selectivelypicky, what can I say?
http://pshero.com/assets/tutorials/0040/Mistral.ttf.ziphttp://pshero.com/assets/tutorials/0040/Mistral.ttf.ziphttp://pshero.com/assets/tutorials/0040/Mistral.ttf.ziphttp://pshero.com/assets/tutorials/0040/Mistral.ttf.zip


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the font size too much because well be pasting it as Smart Objects in Photoshop so we can adjust the size at any

given time. The color I used for the letter is #8CC63F.

Step 2Now go to Effect>3D>Extrude & Bevel, make sure that Previewis on. Use the settings shown below, apart from

specifying rotations for x, y & z axis, I chose Tall-Round from the Bevel drop down list. The settings will more orless depend on the font, so if you have used a different font play a bit, though I will advise to stay away from thefancier Bevel settings, mostly None setting works best. You can also make it more thick by increasing the Extrude

Depth.

Step 3After youre happy with your 3D effect, it will be time to move on over to Photoshop. Open a new document inPhotoshop. Now, copy your 3D text/letter from Illustrator & paste it as Smart Object in Photoshop, press Enter keyor checkmark to commit. You can now resize your text to whatever size you want, in fact, bigger the better, but forthe purposes of this tutorial, I will stick to a small canvas.
http://photoshoptutorials.ws/photoshop-tutorials/basics/photoshop-video-tutorial-5-reasons-smart-objects/http://photoshoptutorials.ws/photoshop-tutorials/basics/photoshop-video-tutorial-5-reasons-smart-objects/


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Power Tip: If for any reason, you want to edit the pasted 3D Smart Object, just double click on the Vector SmartObject thumbnail in the Layer Palette, press OK on the resulting window, the Smart Object will automatically openup in Illustrator, do the changes or editing you want, then go to File>Save & close the file & tadaa the changes willreflect in your Photoshop file.Read more at http://photoshoptutorials.ws/photoshop-tutorials/text-effects/3d-textured-text-effect/#bCqzpq3SWeKR1aUa.99

Step 4

Now, lets begin with the Photoshop magic, we will be adding various texture on the different layers &will spice them up with the variety of blending modes, the key is to experiment & choose the

settings that will best suit your purpose.

Open the texture image that you would like to use, for the first layer I used a texture, lets call it Texture 1 froma texture pack on deviantArt. Go to Select>All & then Edit>Copy to copy the entire texture image, Now we aregoing to paste this image into our letter, but you have to tell Photoshop where to paste it. So return to your 3D text

document & pressing down Ctrl/Cmd Click on Vector Smart Object thumbnail, this will select the entire text/letter, inour case, the letter C, now go to Edit>Paste Into (Shift+Ctrl/Cmd+V) to paste the texture image on C. Changethe blending mode of the texture layer to Overlay. Now, your image & layer palette should look like so:

Look at your layers palette now. You see your texture image there and a mask has been made that allows only theletter part of the image to show. If youre using different images, play around a bit with blending modes, mostlyOverlay, Soft Light, Hard light, Multiply will give the desired results.

Step 5Repeat the procedure prescribed in Step 4, but with a different texture. I used one of the texture from thispack.
http://photoshoptutorials.ws/photoshop-tutorials/text-effects/3d-textured-text-effect/#bCqzpq3SWeKR1aUa.99http://photoshoptutorials.ws/photoshop-tutorials/text-effects/3d-textured-text-effect/#bCqzpq3SWeKR1aUa.99http://farawlat-dxb.deviantart.com/art/8-quot-LARGE-74295288http://sanami276.deviantart.com/art/textures-82-69176308http://sanami276.deviantart.com/art/textures-82-69176308http://sanami276.deviantart.com/art/textures-82-69176308http://photoshoptutorials.ws/photoshop-tutorials/text-effects/3d-textured-text-effect/#bCqzpq3SWeKR1aUa.99http://photoshoptutorials.ws/photoshop-tutorials/text-effects/3d-textured-text-effect/#bCqzpq3SWeKR1aUa.99http://farawlat-dxb.deviantart.com/art/8-quot-LARGE-74295288http://sanami276.deviantart.com/art/textures-82-69176308


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In brief, open the texture image, Select All (Ctrl/Cmd+A), Copy it (Ctrl/Cmd+C) & return to your original document,pressing down Ctrl/Cmd Click on Vector Smart Object thumbnail to select the letter/text & go to Edit>Paste Into(Shift+Ctrl/Cmd+V) to paste the texture in the letter C. And, change the blending mode to Multiply.

Step 6Now, its again time to do the same thing as mentioned in Step 4 & 5, but with the different texture image. This timeI used a more colorful texture from a another texture packover at deviantArt. And, this time I choose the blendingmode to Soft Light.

This is how my image & Layer Palette looks like after step 6. Power Tip: If you need to edit the filler texture imageor if you dont like how it looks within the letter, you can still change it! Just choose the Move Tool (V) & drag overwith your texture layer selected. Also, if you need to resize the texture image select Edit>Transform to resize it.

Step 7Now, select the Background layer & fill with a Gradient Tool (G). I used Linear Gradient & the colors for the twostops are as prescribed in the screenshot. Drag the gradient tool diagonally from bottom to top.
http://sancsky.deviantart.com/art/leftover-vol-1-73351293http://sancsky.deviantart.com/art/leftover-vol-1-73351293http://sancsky.deviantart.com/art/leftover-vol-1-73351293


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Read more at http://photoshoptutorials.ws/photoshop-tutorials/text-effects/3d-textured-text-effect/#I1yDWW2d593dxZeX.99

Step 8

Pressing down Shift key select all the layers in the Layer Palette except the background layer & Link all of them.Also make sure to link the Layer Mask thumbnails with their corresponding layer thumbnails by clicking oncebetween them.

{articlead}

Step 9Now, we will do the reflection of our letter C. For that, select all the linked layers & duplicate them.
http://photoshoptutorials.ws/photoshop-tutorials/text-effects/3d-textured-text-effect/#I1yDWW2d593dxZeX.99http://photoshoptutorials.ws/photoshop-tutorials/text-effects/3d-textured-text-effect/#I1yDWW2d593dxZeX.99http://photoshoptutorials.ws/photoshop-tutorials/text-effects/3d-textured-text-effect/#I1yDWW2d593dxZeX.99http://photoshoptutorials.ws/photoshop-tutorials/text-effects/3d-textured-text-effect/#I1yDWW2d593dxZeX.99


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Step10Merge all the duplicated layers & name it Reflection.

Step 11On the Reflection layer, go to Edit>Transform>Flip Vertical & place it beneath the letter C. Adjust its perspective ifthe need be.

Step 12The next step is to add a layer mask to the duplicate layer. To do this simply click on the add layer mask button inthe layers palette.

Now pick the Gradient Tool (G) and draw a gradient (black to white) in the direction from bottom to mid top.

Finally just reduce the opacity of the duplicate layer and you are all done. I reduced the opacity to 20% , there is nogolden rule about the opacity % , just play with the opacity setting & choose the one that suits your image.


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Step 13Finally, with the Type Tool, I wrote the words for creativity with the settings as shown in the Character Palette.

The font used is Larissa & can be downloaded from here. I also rotated the words a bit via Edit>Transform. Then Iapplied the layer style, as shown in the screenshots below.

Read more at http://photoshoptutorials.ws/photoshop-tutorials/text-effects/3d-textured-text-effect/#KQw7zXTef5e1iJ0G.99

Step 14To add a bit of finishing touch, I added Outer Glow to the Vector Smart Object layer, as shown.
http://www.fonts101.com/xt_fontdetails_az_FID!20012~Larissa~font.htmlhttp://www.fonts101.com/xt_fontdetails_az_FID!20012~Larissa~font.htmlhttp://photoshoptutorials.ws/photoshop-tutorials/text-effects/3d-textured-text-effect/#KQw7zXTef5e1iJ0G.99http://photoshoptutorials.ws/photoshop-tutorials/text-effects/3d-textured-text-effect/#KQw7zXTef5e1iJ0G.99http://www.fonts101.com/xt_fontdetails_az_FID!20012~Larissa~font.htmlhttp://photoshoptutorials.ws/photoshop-tutorials/text-effects/3d-textured-text-effect/#KQw7zXTef5e1iJ0G.99http://photoshoptutorials.ws/photoshop-tutorials/text-effects/3d-textured-text-effect/#KQw7zXTef5e1iJ0G.99


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To take it further, play & experiment with various textures, the blending modes, also changing the variousAdjustments options like Invert, Posterize, Hue/Saturations settings etc. gives the different results. You can alsomake the text look grungy or rusty using grunge textures, its just the matter of exploring the powers of Photoshop &tapping your creativity!Read more at http://photoshoptutorials.ws/photoshop-tutorials/text-effects/3d-textured-text-effect/#7HFfIAfEiP1xAQ19.99

Create a Spectacular Grass Text Effect in Photoshop

Step 1

This tutorial is made up of three partsthe background, the text itself, and some final extra effects. So first of all

were going to make a background. To do this we create a new document in Photoshop. I made mine 1920 x 1200

because I want this image to sit on my laptop background.

We start by drawing a Radial Gradient with the Gradient Tool (G) going from a light yellow-green (#adbf41) to a

mid-range green (#328a26). I wonder if Ive ever written a tutorial that doesnt start with a radial gradient. :-)

Step 2

Now for this image we want to create a really textured background, faintly resembling paper. So the first thing we

need is a paper texture!

Happily you can grab some really awesome grungy paper textures from Bittbox and they are nice and large

too, which is good because this is a huge canvas.

So I cant remember which texture I used first, but grab one, desaturate it (Ctrl+Shift+U) and stretch it over the top

to fit the canvas.

Step 3

Now we set the layer to Overlay and 70% Opacity to blend the texture with our nice green background.
http://photoshoptutorials.ws/photoshop-tutorials/text-effects/3d-textured-text-effect/#7HFfIAfEiP1xAQ19.99http://photoshoptutorials.ws/photoshop-tutorials/text-effects/3d-textured-text-effect/#7HFfIAfEiP1xAQ19.99http://photoshoptutorials.ws/photoshop-tutorials/text-effects/3d-textured-text-effect/#7HFfIAfEiP1xAQ19.99http://www.bittbox.com/freebies/free-high-res-grungy-paper-textures/http://photoshoptutorials.ws/photoshop-tutorials/text-effects/3d-textured-text-effect/#7HFfIAfEiP1xAQ19.99http://photoshoptutorials.ws/photoshop-tutorials/text-effects/3d-textured-text-effect/#7HFfIAfEiP1xAQ19.99http://www.bittbox.com/freebies/free-high-res-grungy-paper-textures/


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Step 4

Now to get a really distressed look, I then copied this layer, spun it around 180 and set it to 20%. Then I brought in

a few more layers of paper texture (using different textures, mostly from Bittbox) and set them all to faint overlays,

one on top of the other.

This was partly for the extra distress, but also because I realised that the textures looked a bit grainy and not small

and sharp. So by combining extra textures and then fading it all back, I can get a nicer, sharper overall look.

Anyhow as you can see in the screenshot there are six layers here. Dont forget if you are a Plus member you can

download the PSD file for this tutorial and take a look in there yourself!

Step 5

Now I duplicated the original background gradient, placed the duplicate layer above all the textures and set it to

40% Opacitythis tones back the texture so its not quite so grungy!

Step 6

Now we create a new layer over the top and using a large, soft, black brush, add some black to the edges. Its

worth toning back the opacity to about 30% and Overlay. You can then duplicate the layer and run a heavy

Gaussian Blur over it (set to about 32px). That way the edges really soften out.


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Now a bit of planning! To make text out of grass, its not going to be enough just to stencil out the grass. Rather we

need it to look all rough, with bits of grass sticking out the edges. To do that, were going to use the letter shapes as

a rough guide and then trace roughly around them and periodically jut out to trace around blades of grass.

Ill warn you now, its very tiresome!

Step 11

OK, so here we are tracing. You should use the Pen Tool (P) and frankly, if youre not handy with it before you

start, you will be by the end!

Notice how in the parts where my path juts out, it sort of follows individual blades of grass. That way when youhave the final cut-out they will look like pieces of grass sticking out.

Step 12

When youve finished your path, its best to save it in the Paths Palette. You can do this by switching to that palette

and then clicking the little down arrow and choosing Save Path. That way if you need the path again later, you can

grab it.Anyhow, double-click the path to get the selection and go back to your grass layer. Duplicate the grass layer so you

still have more grass for the other letters, then invert your selection (Ctrl+Shift+I) and cut away the excess grass. In

the screenshot Ive faded back the duplicate grass layer so you can see the cut out "E" part.


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Step 13

OK, so here we have our "E" on the final bakcground. As you can see, it looks only slightly better than if wed just

used the letter to stencil out the grass without bothering to trace. But thats OK, what it needs is a bit more depth.

After all, if that letter was really sitting there, we should see some shadow and sides to it.

Step 14

First of all though, well add some layer styling to give it a bit more of a three dimensional look. The styles are

shown below.

Heres the first set of layer styles


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Step 16

So this was all just experimental, and it kinda looks OK, but obviously has a long way to go. Now well add some

shadow. For that well use a technique that I demonstrated in a previous tutorial, Using Light and Shade to

Bring Text to Life

The idea is to make a three dimensional look. So Ctrl-click the grass layer and then in a new layer below, fill it with

black. Then press the down arrow once and the right arrow once and fill it again, then repeat over and over until

you get an effect like that shown. I think that was about 15 steps of filling.
http://psdtuts.com/text-effects-tutorials/using-light-shade-to-bring-text-to-life/http://psdtuts.com/text-effects-tutorials/using-light-shade-to-bring-text-to-life/http://psdtuts.com/text-effects-tutorials/using-light-shade-to-bring-text-to-life/http://psdtuts.com/text-effects-tutorials/using-light-shade-to-bring-text-to-life/


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Step 21

Now by moving those pieces into the shadow areas, we can make it look like there is grass sticking out and its a

real 3D object made from grass!

Because these new grass bits are in shadow, you might want to use the Burn Tool (O) to darken them

appropriately.

Step 22

So yay, one letter down four to go! Good thing we didnt choose a long word like erm I dont know laborious!

Step 23

Using the exact same technique here is the A;

Step 24

and the R and T you get the picture.

Step 25

And finally, the whole word! The only extra thing I did here was to move the letters apart a little. Each letter is in its

own Layer Group which makes moving it around much easier.


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Step 26

Now nice as its looking, our text is a little lonely and monotonous. So in this last section well add a few more

elements to the design. Note we dont want to overdo it, though, because I want this to be a desktop background,

so space it is important (for all my icons!).

So first up, lets add some extra text. Here Ive placed a nice quote about the earth and unity taken from the Bahai

faith (thats my religion!). I love quotes, because it means we get three parts to decoratethe quote, the quotation

marks and the source.

The text is in a variation of Swiss which is thinner, but still condensed. Using multiple fonts from the same family

(heavy, light, etc) is a good, safe bet for keeping your type looking coherent.

So here Ive set the quote to Overlay and 50%, then duplicated the text and set it to Screen and 50%. Then Iveadded quotation marks in the same Swiss font, but made them extra large and a bright shade of green. Finally, the

source of the quote is in teeny letters and centered vertically. And, of course, the whole quote has been measured

out so its exactly the length of the main "EARTH" text.

Step 27

Next well add a bit of a highlight to the scene. To do this, create a new layer above all the rest, and using the

Gradient Tool (G), draw a gradient of white -> transparent towards the top left. Then set this layer to Soft Light and

50%. This will turn it into a nice subtle bit of lighting.

Step 28

Now well add two eye-catching elements to offset all the green. These will be a brilliant blue butterfly and a little

red ladybug. I used the excellent everystockphoto Web site that searches a ton of free stock Web sites for you to

find two awesome images to use: Ladybug|Butterfly
http://everystockphoto.com/http://www.everystockphoto.com/photo.php?imageId=415635http://www.everystockphoto.com/photo.php?imageId=415635http://www.sxc.hu/photo/485509/http://www.sxc.hu/photo/485509/http://everystockphoto.com/http://www.everystockphoto.com/photo.php?imageId=415635http://www.sxc.hu/photo/485509/


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Step 29

Placing the images is pretty easy. First the butterfly. We just open up the image in Photoshop, use the Magic Wand

Tool (W) to select all the white area, then go to Select > Modify > Expand and expand the selection by 1px to make

sure weve got it all. Then press Ctrl+Shift+I to invert the selection and copy the butterfly over to our main canvas.

The ladybug I selected needs to be cut out of its image. To do that I used the Pen Tool (P) and traced around the

little guy and then just cut him out that way.

Step 30So here are our two extras. As you can see, the lady bug looks a bit weird actually because I did a quickn'dirty job

of cutting him out. But thats OK because hes going to be tiny so you wont be able to see the details anyway.

So paste them in and then shrink them down and place them appropriately. Its best if they arent close together,

because that way theyll balance each other.

I added a drop shadow to each. With the ladybug its a very close shadow because hes small and walking on the

grass. With the butterfly, I set the distance to about 10px because hes hovering in the air and therefore the shadow

lands a little ways away.

Final Image
http://d2f8dzk2mhcqts.cloudfront.net/117_Earth/final_1920.jpg


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5

Open the Channels palette and duplicate a channel the Blue channel will work

fine. Go to Image>Adjustments>Invert.

6

Open the Filter menu and select Blur>Gaussian Blur. First, blur the channel

at a 25 pixel radius. Blur the channel again at a radius of 15 pixels.

7

Turn on all the other layers (Click the eye to the left of RGB)

Turn off the Blue copy channel, but dont delete it youll need it in a moment or two.


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Click on the letters RGB to make sure that th RGB channel is active.

8

Go to Filter>Render>Lighting Effects. Set it up as outlined in the image

below be sure to select the Blue copy channel as the Texture Channel.

Make sure you change the light angle and shape on the left by dragging

the 4 dots

9

The result of all that is a pretty basic bevel, and yes, you could do pretty much the

same thing with a layer style. Some habits die hard, however, and I like the end result better when channels come

into play. What can I say? Ive been doing it this way since at least PS 6, and if it aint broke, dont fix it!

10

Duplicate the text layer and go to

Filter>Sketch>Chrome. Set up the reflections as seen in the dialog box below:

11


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this tutorial you will learn how to create a love message on the sand using basic Photoshop filters,

brushes and layer styles. Create a realistic writing on sand effect in Photoshop!

Tutorial Details

Program: Adobe Photoshop

Difficulty: Beginner

Estimated Completion Time: 20 30 minutes

Tutorial Assets

The following assets were used during the production of this tutorial

Sand photo

Step 1

Open your beach (sand) stock. Press Cmd/Ctrl+Shift+N to make a new layer. Hit P to active Pen

Tool with setting belows:

Make a path like heart shape:

If youre not familiar with Pen Tool you can use heart shape from shape gallery.
http://morguefile.com/archive/display/123370http://blog.entheosweb.com/tutorials/create-a-love-message-on-the-sandhttp://blog.entheosweb.com/tutorials/create-a-love-message-on-the-sandhttp://blog.entheosweb.com/tutorials/create-a-love-message-on-the-sandhttp://morguefile.com/archive/display/123370


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Choose Paths from Layer Pallete, then double click Work Path, choose Save Paths then name it

whatever you want. Its a good way to restore your path and you can active it anytime on any layers

you want.

Step 2

Hit Cmd/Ctrl+Enter to make selection from this path then go to Edit-Stroke with color # 45382f:

Choose Filter-Noise-Add Noise:
http://blog.entheosweb.com/tutorials/create-a-love-message-on-the-sandhttp://blog.entheosweb.com/tutorials/create-a-love-message-on-the-sand


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Go to Filter-Texture-Texturizer, choose Sandtone:

Step 3

Right click this layer, choose Blending options:
http://blog.entheosweb.com/tutorials/create-a-love-message-on-the-sandhttp://blog.entheosweb.com/tutorials/create-a-love-message-on-the-sandhttp://blog.entheosweb.com/tutorials/create-a-love-message-on-the-sand


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Then change the mode to Multipy 50%.

Name this layer as heart shape.

Step 4

Make a new layer, hold the Cmd/Ctrl while clicking the thumbnail of heart shape layer to load its

selection:

Go to Select-Modify-Expand and set the value as 5:
http://blog.entheosweb.com/tutorials/create-a-love-message-on-the-sandhttp://blog.entheosweb.com/tutorials/create-a-love-message-on-the-sandhttp://blog.entheosweb.com/tutorials/create-a-love-message-on-the-sandhttp://blog.entheosweb.com/tutorials/create-a-love-message-on-the-sand


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Step 5

Right click heart shape layer and load its selection again. Choose Select-Modify-Contract and set

value as 3. Then set feather for it as 2.

Click the button at the bottom of Layer Pallete to add layer mask. We have result:
http://blog.entheosweb.com/tutorials/create-a-love-message-on-the-sandhttp://blog.entheosweb.com/tutorials/create-a-love-message-on-the-sandhttp://blog.entheosweb.com/tutorials/create-a-love-message-on-the-sandhttp://blog.entheosweb.com/tutorials/create-a-love-message-on-the-sand


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Step 7

Make a new layer and place it on the top. Load selection of stroke 1 layer. Do the same techniques

in step 4, but with feather for selection = 12. We have result after applying Noise and Texture filter:

Then choose Filter-Noise-Dust & Scratches:


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Load selection of stroke 1 layer again then do the same technique in step 5 but with value of

Contract as 2. This is result we get:

Step 8

Come back to heart shape layer. Were going to change layer style effect again to make it look more

realistic. Right lick it, choose Blending options:


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Lower opacity to Multipy 40%:

Step 9

Still on heart shape layer, hold Cmd/Ctrl+click its thumbnail to load its selection. Choose Contract

value as 3:

Right click this selection, choose Layer via Copy:


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Apply Noise and Texturizer with same settings like in step 2:

Call this layer as letters.

Step 11

Choose heart shape layer then right click it, choose Copy Layer Style:

Choose letters layer, right click it, choose Paste Layer Style:


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Increase opacity to Multipy 60%:

Step 12

On letters layer, load its selection with contract = 2. Right click it, choose Layer via Copy, we have:

Add layer mask to blur some too visible stroke parts:

Step 13

Make a new layer and place it on the top. Load selection of letters again, apply Expand with value =

2 then stroke it with color #6c5c51:


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Change the Shadow and Midtone value:

Step 16

Were almost done! Create a new layer, set to Overlay 100% and fill with 50% gray:

Hit O to active Burn Tool, I set value for this tool as Midtones Range and 20-30% Exposure. Use it to

darken some parts of our message. You can see how I used it with Normal mode ( dark parts on

screenshot):
http://blog.entheosweb.com/tutorials/create-a-love-message-on-the-sandhttp://blog.entheosweb.com/tutorials/create-a-love-message-on-the-sandhttp://blog.entheosweb.com/tutorials/create-a-love-message-on-the-sandhttp://blog.entheosweb.com/tutorials/create-a-love-message-on-the-sandhttp://blog.entheosweb.com/tutorials/create-a-love-message-on-the-sand


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Step 3

Next, go to Filter > Render > Lighting Effects and set the values as shown below. This way the text will match thescene lightening.


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Step 6

Paste the Rock Texture into a new layer above the 3D smart object. Change the Blending mode to Overlay.

Ctrl (Command) + Click on Smart Object miniature to select the text shape, then Ctrl (Command) + Shift + I to

invert the selection, then hit DEL to delete the extra texture (on the Rock Texture layer).

Then use the Magic Wand tool to select the front face of the 3D text on the Smart Object layer and delete theselection on the Rock Texture layer.


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Step 10

Now were going to add some dirt. Open the Displace texture file one more time. Paste this image into a new

layer. Go To Filter > Distort > Displace, search for map.psd and set both the horizontal and vertical values to 50.

Then, select all (Ctrl + A or Command + A) and copy the selection.
http://www.sxc.hu/photo/810079http://www.sxc.hu/photo/810079


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Step 12

Change the Dirt texture blending mode to Multiply and add a small Drop Shadow.


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Step 15

Burn some shadows on the Grass texture layer.

Step 16

Add a small drop shadow to the Grass texture layer. Using the Sponge tool, desaturate some of the areas of the

grass.


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Step 17

Paste the grass texture into a new layer on a plane on Vanishing Point filter window (go to Filter > Vanishing Point)

to match the perspective of the landscape.

Step 18

Erase some random areas of the Grass layer, and using an irregular brush delete some random areas here and

there.


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Step 22

Using an irregular eraser, delete everything with the exception of the hanging plant, and place them next to 3D

texts corners.

Step 23

Duplicate the Hanging plant layer and go to Edit > Transform > Flip Horizontal. Then distort the copy a little bit.

Follow this with the use of the burn tool to make the copy darker according to the the scene lighting.


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Final result

Now youve got a nice 3D text inside a photograph. Click on the image for a larger preview. Try it on your own and

come up with your own variations.

Written exclusively for WDD by Alvaro Guzman.

The EASIEST WAY TO MAKE RAYS OF LIGHT: A Photoshop tutorial for beginners
http://netdna.webdesignerdepot.com/uploads/2008/11/oasis-final-image.jpg


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THE EASIEST WAYS TO MAKE RAYS OF LIGHT

A Photoshop Tutorial for beginners

I have used Photoshop CS4 but it will work in earlier versions.

This tutorial is an adaptation of Creating An Underwater Scene by the truly wonderful Mark Monciardini

As with anything in Photoshop, there are many ways to achieve the same end.Making rays of light is no exception.

There are many ways to make these.This is the easiest and most effective way that I have found to do this.

Essentially it is only four main steps to achieve this result

Steppleland Stock from Deviantart has kindly given permission to use the lovely start image.

If you click on this LINKyou can download the image.

Make sure that you download the full size image and not just the thumbnail or the technique that you will be

learning will not work properly. To do this click on the download button, and when the full size image shows, right

click and use save image as.

Please make sure that you tick the Add to Favourites button before you download, as a way of saying

Thanks for the use of the stock.

Step 1

Open the image and immediately create a new layer by clicking on the new layer icon at the bottom of your layers

palate. Name this layer Light Rays"

See below
http://www.photoshoptopsecret.com/http://steppeland.deviantart.com/art/Mist-2-102672578http://www.photoshoptopsecret.com/http://steppeland.deviantart.com/art/Mist-2-102672578


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Step 4

Go to

Filter/Blur/Radial Blur

When the box pops up, set

Amount = 84

Blur Method = Zoom

Quality = Good

The arrow here shows you where the zoom will radiate from.

You need to place the blur centre over your light source ie the sun or the moon, or where the strongest light is in

the sky. In this image, we need to have the Blur Centre it in the top left hand corner. So, with your mouse, slide the

zoom centre to the top left of the square box.

The dialogue box should look like this

Hit the OK button.

Your image will now look like this.


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You are nearly there now!

Step 5

Now set the blending mode of this layer to Soft Light (See image below)

Reduce the opacity to 77%

Reduce the Fill to 94%

(The reduction in opacity and fill is a personal preference. Just adjust them until you are happy with the effect.)

Step 6

Now add a layer mask to this layer by clicking on the layer mask icon at the bottom of your layers palate. (See

image below)

Now set your foreground colour to Black.

Set the background colour to White.

Select a soft round brush 200px.


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With the layer mask selected, paint over the areas you want to hide with the black brush.

Here I have painted out the rays over the tree trunk, to give the impression that the light is falling behind it. I also

painted out the front foreground to set the rays further back in the image.

If you go too far, change the foreground colour to White and that will bring the rays back.

And thats it!! How simple was that?

Special thanks go to my dear friends LorraineCreagh&Francis

for their kindness and help in learning how to upload and post this tutorial.

xx

Add Rays Of Light To A Photo With Photoshop

Heres the original photo Ill be starting with, which is available from the Fotolia image library:

The original image.
http://www.redbubble.com/people/skeeterhttp://www.redbubble.com/people/skeeterhttp://www.redbubble.com/people/artisandelimagehttp://www.fotolia.com/partner/202479569http://www.redbubble.com/people/skeeterhttp://www.redbubble.com/people/artisandelimagehttp://www.fotolia.com/partner/202479569


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And heres how it will look after adding the rays of sunlight. Depending on your image, the effect can appear subtle

(as it is here) or more pronounced. Well learn how to fine-tune the results at the end of the tutorial:

The final light rays effect.Lets get started!

Step 1: Add A New Blank Layer

With the photo newly opened in Photoshop, we can see in the Layers panel that our image is sitting all by itself on

the Background layer, which is currently the only layer in our document. Were going to add our light rays on a

separate layer above the image, so click on the New Layer icon at the bottom of the Layers panel:

Click on the New Layer icon.

Nothing will happen to the image in the document window just yet, but a new blank layer named Layer 1 appears

above the Background layer. Notice that Layer 1 is highlighted in blue, which means its currently the active layer,

and that means anything we do next will happen on this new layer, not to the image on the Background layer below

it:

Photoshop adds a new layer named Layer 1 above the Background layer.

Step 2: Reset The Foreground And Background Colors If Needed

Press the letterD on your keyboard to quickly reset Photoshops Foreground and Background colors to

their defaults if needed, which sets the Foreground color to blackand the Background color to white. Were

going to run a filter in a moment th

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