Showing posts with label text efects. Show all posts
Showing posts with label text efects. Show all posts

Dramatic Text on Fire Effect in Photoshop

photographydesign



Part 1— The Background

So create a new document in Photoshop at 1920px wide x 1200px high, and with the Gradient Tool (G), draw in a radial gradient of browns (#5c3d09 to #1f1409) so you get something like what is shown below.
Notice that the gradient is not centered vertically but sits toward the top. In this image we want the top of the text to be on fire, so the top part of the image should be a bit more lit up.

Step 2

As in the grass text tutorial, once again we’re going to have a textured background. But rather than starting from scratch, I just copied the background from the previous tutorial, merged all the layers and desaturated to get what you see below.
If you need to make this from scratch, first visit Bittbox to get the original paper textures and then follow the previous tutorial’s steps.

Step 3

Now we set the layer to Overlay and to blend the texture into the background and voila!

Step 4

Just to add a bit more texture though, let’s run the Texturizer filter. To do this, create a new layer and fill it with a brown/beige color—#66500f. Then go to Filter > Texture > Texturizer and use the Canvas texture with 80% Scaling and Relief set to 4.

Step 5

Once you have your texturized layer, set that to Overlay. This adds some extra fine detail to our texture which is good because we’re working on such a big canvas.

Step 6

Next we’re going to apply a layer to slightly desaturate the bottom half of the image. This is so that the top looks like it has a warmer glow where the flames are, while the bottom looks a little colder.
So create a new layer and fill it with the color #4b4f3b. Then add a layer mask with a gradient to mask out the top and fade down (so you get the effect shown).
Now set the layer to Color and 45% Opacity.

Part 2—Text + Glow = Awesomeness

OK, we now have a nice background! So let’s add some text. I’ve used the font Trajan because it’s a really dramatic looking font. Here I’ve placed the text in the color #cb9328, then set it to Linear Dodge (Add) with an Opacity of 8%.
What we’re going to be doing with our text is making it look like the top half of the text is coming out of the background and is red hot with flames flickering off. This means we’re going to run a lot of effects and apply layer masks to them so that only the top half shows while the bottom half reverts to faded out text like we have currently.

Step 8

So first create a new layer group to put all the text layers in—because there will be a lot of them.
Then duplicate the text layer and set the color of the duplicate text to #5e3f1c.

Step 9

Now set the newest text layer to Overlay and 70% Opacity. It should look kind of reddish (as shown below).

Step 10

Now duplicate the text again and set the latest duplicate to a yellowish color—#cb9328. Then set this to Linear Dodge (Add) and Opacity 30%.
Next we add a layer mask and draw a gradient so the latest text layer fades out as shown below, and beneath you can see the reddish colored combination of the bottom two text layers.

Step 11

Next we duplicate the text layer yet again, but put this layer right on the bottom. Set the color to black—#000000. Then go to Filter > Blur > Gaussian Blur and it will ask you to rasterize the text, click yes to that, and then set the Radius to about 4px.
Then Ctrl-click any of the other text layers and go back to the black layer and hit delete so you are just left with a sort of shadow. Then duplicate this layer and merge it with the first so the effect is heavier. You should have something that looks like the screenshot below.

Step 12

Once again, add a layer mask so the shadow quickly fades out as shown. This makes it look like the text is coming out of the page.

Step 13

Now duplicate our black layer again and using the Smudge Tool (R) and a largish soft brush you want to just smudge the shadow around so it looks like burn marks.

Step 14

Here’s how our text is looking now. I actually created two sets of "burn" marks, and then four sets of the shadow layer each blurred a little more than the last and each faded back.

Step 15

Now it’s time to make the top part of our text glow. So first of all, duplicate the text layer again and place this layer at the very top and set it to a yellow color—#dc9a08.
Then run a Filter > Blur > Gaussian Blur over it with Radius of 8px. Then grab a large soft eraser brush and just erase away parts at the bottom so it’s kind of uneven.

Step 16

Set our first glow layer to Soft Light. You might want to repeat the process, erasing even more so the top part is even glowier.

Step 17

Now duplicate the text layer yet again and place this at the very top. This one should be again the same yellow (#dc9a08).
Then go to Layer > Rasterize > Type and turn the text into a flat graphic. Then Ctrl-click the layer and go to Select > Modify > Contract and use a value of 1px. Then press Delete to delete everything except that 1px outline.

Step 18Now set the 1px layer to Overlay, and you should have something like the image below.

Step 19

Now to our 1px glow add a layer mask to fade it out down the bottom as we’ve been doing with the other layers.
Then duplicate the layer, and run a Filter > Blur > Gaussian Blur set to 1px. Then duplicate this layer again and blur it by 2px. Then duplicate the layer again and blur it by 4px.
Then Ctrl-click any of the text layers, press Ctrl+Shift+I to inverse the selection and go through each of the glow layers and press Delete to remove any of the blur that has strayed out of the boundary of the text.
The idea is that we want the edges of the text to look red-hot with it fading in to an overall hot glow on the text.

Step 20

Next we duplicate all four of the glow layers and merge them together. This should result in a layer on top which is the original bright yellow.
Grab the Smudge Tool and run over the text, smudging it up to look like heat waves coming off the text, as shown.

Step 21

Now set this latest layer to Overlay and you should have something looking like this!

Step 22

Now we’ve pretty much finished our text. I went through and duplicated some of the glow layers to make it look even more fiery. Feel free to experiment with getting a real red-hot glow look by doing so.

Step 23

Next, in keeping with the last wallpaper, I’ve gone and added a quote underneath my main text. This provides a nice embellishment to the page. Try to use colors that fit in with the background and text layer so it doesn’t stand out too much, because we really want this to be a secondary element to the main text. I’ve used Swiss Light Condensed as my font and laid it out just like in the previous Grass Text tutorial.

Part 3—The Flames

Finally, with all our preparation done, it’s time to add the actual flames! For this, we need some images of fire set against a plain black background. A good photo is hard to find, and try as I did, I couldn’t find a really great free photo. So in the end I used this photo from Fotolia which you can purchase using the link below. There was also an OK photo from Flickr which I’ve also linked to and which I ended up using later for the "E". So you might want to grab that too.
AcheroN—Fotolia.com
Peasap—Flickr.com
Now the technique for copying the flames over is actually really simple. I actually only learned this technique recently when reading one of Nik Ainley‘s tutorials for DigitalArts magazine called Create Amazing Photomontages where he did it with water.
What you need to do is:
  1. Open up the flame image in Photoshop
  2. Go to the Channels tab and find the channel with the highest contrast, which for images of fire should be the Red Channel, and click on it
  3. This will make your image appear black and white, and because we’re on the highest contrast layer, it will seem really bright white. Now Ctrl-click this channel and it will select all the pixels in that channel.
  4. Click back to the RGB channel and copy the selected pixels
  5. You can now paste the flames into your main canvas!
This is actually a really, really useful technique for copying something translucent like fire off a flat background. And as you’ll see by visiting Nik’s tutorial, it’s also great for copying water!

Step 25

OK, so here we’ve pasted the flames on to our main canvas. (For clarity I’ve also temporarily switched off the text layers). As you can see, we’ve got the fire without the black background and it’s partially transparent, which means it’ll look super on top of our text.

Step 26

Now the next thing to do is to cut up our one bit of fire into a few pieces. Just duplicate the layer and switch off one as a backup first. Then using the Pen Tool, cut up the fire so you work with the contours of the flame so it looks natural. Here you can see I’ve produced four pieces of flame from the one image. You can also try flipping bits around to make them seem more random.
Set the layers to Screen mode so that any remaining black parts are totally gone, and it’s even more transparent.

Step 27

Now because my text is just four letters, I need four separate pieces of fire. For the fourth one (on top of the E) I actually grabbed that Flickr photo and repeated the same process as earlier to create another flame. Also the fire on the letter I has been squashed a little as well to make it look more random.

Step 28

Applying the fire is really as easy as moving the flames over the text. You want to try to match the flames to the shape of the letter so it looks like they are dancing off the letters.

Step 29

OK here I’ve placed all four bits of flame over the top. It’s not bad, but you can see that the I and the R have the same flame and also all the flames aren’t very tall.

Step 30

So here I’ve gone through each flame and using the Transform Tool stretched them vertically. Also I used a bit of judicious erasing to make the flame on the I look a little more unique.

Step 31

Now to make them look even more lit up, duplicate each flame layer, run a Filters > Blur > Gaussian Blur with a Radius of 3px and set the layer to 15% Opacity so it provides a bit of glow around the edges of the flames.

Step 32

So we’re pretty much there! This is how the composition looks.

Step 33

Finally we’ll add a last highlight. So create a new layer above all the others and draw in a white to black radial gradient as shown. Set this layer to Overlay and 40% Opacity.

Finished!

And there we have it, a text on fire effect! In the next tutorial in the series, we’ll be producing the Air image, however it’ll be in two weeks, not one—as I’m taking a few days off work!
If you’re interested in creating flames from scratch in Photoshop, you might also like to check out this classic tutorial that coincidentally uses the exact same typeface! It’s a Photoshop 6 tutorial, and I can still remember reading it like a half decade ago, but it’s still very relevant, even if the screenshots feature a super retro Mac interface.

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How to Create High Quality Metal 3D Text in Photoshop

photographydesign

Step 1

Let’s start with a new document of 1500 pixel by 1500 pixel, and 300px/inch resolution. Create a new layer, name it "3D TEXT_first." Then grab the Type Tool (T) and type big letters of your desired text, in my case it’s written as 3D TEXT. Also don’t worry if your text goes out of canvas, it has to be very big. Because we’re going to rasterize this layer and distort it in the next step.

Step 2

So now, right-click on the "3D TEXT_first" layer and select Rasterize Type. Then use Edit > Transform > Distort and create a nice perspective to our text by dragging the corners. Make sure your text is way smaller. This way you won’t lose its quality and the text won’t get blurry.
Tip: If you fail by distorting, and some text edges look fuzzy, use Filter > Sharpen > Unsharp Mask, and increase the Amount.

Step 3

Now that the text is way smaller and has a nice perspective, create a duplicate (Command + J) of this text layer and name it "3D TEXT_last." Switch to Move Tool (V) and use keyboard arrows to position the "3D TEXT_last" layer a bit above the "3D TEXT_first" layer. In my case this was 16 pixels up and 2 pixels right.

Step 4

Create duplicates (Command + J) of both text layers and position them as you see in the image below. Make sure you have exactly the same order as shown, as it’s important!

Step 5

Now turn off "3D TEXT_first" and "3D TEXT_last" layers. Select the "3D TEXT_first copy" layer and make around 60 copies (Command + J). Now, select "3D TEXT_last copy", go all the way down to the bottom of Layers Palette, hold Shift and left-click on the first "3D TEXT_first copy" layer – this should select all 60 layers. Next right-click on those layers and select Link Layers.

Step 6

Switch to Move Tool (V), select "3D TEXT_last copy" layer. Go to the upper toolbar of the move tool. Click on Distribute Vertical Centers and Distribute Horizontal Centers. Then notice that our letters were perfectly distributed creating a nice 3D shape. Next, select all linked layers and merge (Command + E). Name this layer "3D TEXT_merged."

Step 7

Go to Layers Palette, turn on "3D TEXT_last" and open this layer’s Blending Options. Apply a Gradient Overlay from #1a3236 to #cffffb. As for setting the Angle, try to make this gradient look darker on the top of letters, and lighter on the bottom of them.

Step 8

In the Layers Palette select "3D TEXT_merged," turn it off, then hold Alt and left-click on this layer’s thumbnail to load the selection. Make a new layer, name it "3D TEXT_colored" and fill it with #a6e6fe. Deselect (Command + D).

Step 9

Now go to "3D TEXT_colored" layer’s Blending Options. Select Gradient Overlay. Make sure you select the second preset in the Gradient Editor, that is Foreground to Transparent, and then set the color values starting as: #000000, #4a4747, #ffffff, #262626, #ffffff, and #000000. Next, depending on which direction your text is going, the Angle will be different. So in my case I set the Angle to 123, and as you can see the gradient goes through the center of the whole text. So that will be our lighting.


Step 10

Some spots and the top of the letters look too bright, so we need to create just a touch of shadow in places indicated below. So hold Alt, left-click on the "3D TEXT_colored" layer to load its selection, then create a new layer above the "3D TEXT_colored" layer, and name it "Shadows." Set your Foreground Color to #1a3236 or darker, then grab the Brush Tool (B), set Flow around 30%, Hardness to 0% and paint. Then Deselect (Command + D) once you’re done.


Step 11

Now let’s start giving this text a quality look. Go to the Layers Palette, hold Alt and left-click on "3D TEXT last" layer thumbnail to load its selection. Then create a new layer above all layers, name it "Shining lines." Grab the Rectangular Marquee Tool (M), right-click on your image and select "Stroke." Set Width to 1 pixel, Color to white, and Location to Center. Grab a nice big brush with Hardness 0% and Flow around 30%. Then erase everything except places indicated with arrows. These arrows point to lights, and those pointed edges need some shine. So make sure you leave them untouched.

Step 12

When you’re done erasing, create a duplicate of the "Shining lines" layer, lower its Opacity just a touch, and merge (Command + E) those two layers. You may switch for a moment to a black background to see if you did a good job with erasing, if not, make some further corrections. You should get something that looks similar to the image below.

Step 13

Now go to the bottom of the Layers Palette, select and turn on "3D TEXT first" layer, rename it to "Bottom shadow 1." Make a duplicate of it (Command + J), name this copy "Bottom shadow 2." Now apply Filter > Blur > Gaussian Blur to the "Bottom shadow 2" layer, with Radius of 3 pixels.

Step 14

Switch to the Move Tool (V), and by hitting keyboard arrows move this blurred shadow 5 pixels to the left. You need to create an illusion that the curvy text lines drop more shadows inside. So we do not need some outside parts of this shadow. Grab the Brush Tool (B) and softly brush parts of the shadow shown below. Don’t be to picky, there is no need to make an accurate erase. It’s OK if you leave some gray shadow edges, like in the second image below.


Step 15

Now go back and apply Filter > Blue > Gaussian Blur to the "Bottom shadow 1" layer. Set the Radius just a little smaller, like 2 pixel. Next, switch to the Move Tool (V), and by hitting the keyboard arrows, position this shadow 2 pixels down, and 2 pixels to the right. Let it cover the whole space under the letters, and remember to keep the shadow edges very thin.

Step 16

Great, we made our text really stand out. Next go to the Layers Palette, hold Command, left-click on the "Shining lines," "3D TEXT_last," "Shadows," and "3D TEXT_colored" layers. Now that you have selected them, drag these layers onto the Create a New Layer icon. Next, merge those copies (Command + E) and name this layer "Reflection." Place it above all layers and turn it off (it’s important to turn it off, so do not skip this step).

Step 17

Now, turn off the "background" layer, or even delete it, we no longer need it. Go to Image > Merge Visible, name this merged layer "TEXT." Position it above the "Reflection" layer. As you can see we have two similar layers with a small difference, the "TEXT" layer has a drop shadow, and "Reflection" has no shadow. We will be working now with the "TEXT" layer so let the "Reflection" layer remain invisible.
OK, let’s give these letters a higher quality look. Select the "TEXT" layer, duplicate it (Command + J), and this should automatically be named "TEXT copy," leave it this way. Then
change the "TEXT copy" layer Blending Mode to Overlay and Opacity to 63%. Next go to Edit > Adjustments > Gradient Map, and select the Black to White preset.

Step 18

Next, make another duplicate (Command + J) of the "TEXT" layer, and position it above all layers. Name it "Sharp edges" and by the way change it’s Blending Mode to Hard Light. Then go to Filter > Other > High Pass, set the Radius to 1 or 2 pixels. Lower this layer’s Opacity around 60-70%.

Step 19

Create a new layer below all layers, name it "Surface," press D on the keyboard to set colors to default. Grab the Gradient Tool (G) and create a large gradient, through the whole image, from top to bottom. You can start it outside the canvas. Then go to Edit > Transform > Distort, and give this surface a touch of perspective. It doesn’t have to be perfect. Because when you’re done, select the Crop Tool (C), and crop the image nicely to get rid of the surface edges.


Step 20

As I was looking to this image I thought the text is a little to bright for me, so next thing I did, was select the "TEXT" layer and apply Image > Adjustments > Brightness/Contrast. I lowered the Contrast all the way down.

Step 21

Next, go to the very bottom of the Layers Palette, and create new layer above the "Surface" layer, then name it "Glass". Grab the Paint Bucket Tool (G), fill this layer with color #3f3f3f. Then apply Filter > Noise > Add Noise, set the Amount to 28%, Distribution to Gaussian, and leave the Monochromatic option checked.

Step 22

Now, select Filter > Blur > Motion Blur, set the Angle to -90, and Distance to 144 pixels. Change this layer’s Blending Mode to Overlay, and set the Opacity to 50%. Grab the Brush Tool (B), then with a very nice soft brush of Hardness 0% and Flow around 20%, start erasing some spots of this blurred noise. Next erase places around the text to get a little of the glassy depth of the surface.

Step 23

In the end, I decided to colorize this whole image. If you want to get the same final color effect, go to Layers Palette and add an Adjustment Layer on the top of all layers. Pick Hue/Saturation. Make sure you have the Colorize option checked. Then set Hue to 201, and Saturation to 17.
Next, select the "Reflection" layer, turn it on. Lower its Opacity to 20-30%, switch to the Move Tool (V), and by hitting the keyboard arrows, position it a few pixels down to make a nice reflection. Then you can apply a Layer Mask and softly erase some of the reflection bottom.

Conclusion

That’s pretty much it, here is our quality 3D text, simply made in Photoshop. If you want to add some flat text to this image, make sure it’s going towards the perspective. Also, try to discover your own use for this 3D typography by experimenting with colors and lights. You can get many cool, various results.
Thanks for reading the tutorial, I really enjoyed making it. Hope you’ve learned something new. You can view the final image below or view a larger version here.

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