Design With a Thought – Design/Marketing Blog

Step 1. Working the background.
Open up your texture file. Create a new layer on top of it, grab Gradient Tool, choose Radial Gradient and create a gradient similar to the one on the image. Set Blending Mode of this layer to Linear Burn. You Should now have something similar to the image. This gives the background a deeper sort of look.

Step 2. Add text.
Pick Horizontal Type Tool (Simple text tool) and type in your text. Give it a size of about  61px. Deselect the text once done and hit Ctrl+T to fine-tune the size of it.  The font i used is called Poor Richard (Regular).

Step 3. Throw in a Gold Gradient. Double click on the text layer and it will bring up layer styles menu.  Tick/Click Gradient Overlay,  click on the actual gradient to adjust it (use screenshot for reference- menu 2). Once done hit Ok and tick/click  “Drop  Shadow” , use same settings as on my screenshot (menu 2).  For the lazy ones out there the gradients i used are included in the zip file that you will need for this tutorial. Just load those gradients in your photoshop (CS2 and higher) and enjoy being lazy.

Step 4. Add Outlines/ Stroke to create more of a 3D effect.
Select the txt layer: Hold down CTRL and click on the thumbnail of the layer in your layers pallete. This will select everything that is on that layer. (Very useful shortcut), now without deselecting, create a new layer on top of it and call it Outlines.  Now go to Edit – Stroke and add a 2px stroke on the outside. Follow the print screen.

Step 5. More Gradients. Double click on the Outlines layer to bring up Layer Styles menu. Click Gradient Overlay, and add another gradient similar to mine on the screenshot. Now a very important bit here is to fine-tune the tweakers on the gradient so that it looks more realistic. Have a look at the screenshot again and try creating a similar effect and positioning of the tweakers.

Step 6. Master Selection Shortcuts. Here comes a bit of a tricky part of you are not familiar with shortcuts. But i think you will find this technique very useful in the future so let’s learn it.  Hold down Ctrl and click on the main text layer thumbnail, this will select your text without any outlines that we did (because they are on separate layer, remember?) Now keep holding Ctrl, and add Shift and hold it again and click on the Outlines layer thumbnail, guess what that does, it adds another selection to already existing one, well no need to hold those keys down anymore : ).  Now click Rectangular Marquee Tool (box selection tool), (the text should be still selected) and while holding down Alt (notice a little minus appearing next to your mouse pointer) draw a rectangular selection on the bottom half of the text similar to the one on my screenshot. Basically, what it does, it get rids of the unneeded selections, so it’s a reverse effect of selection tool. Next time you want a reverse selection, just hold down Alt.

Step 7. Why we did all that. Now we have our neat selection, create a new layer, pick a soft big brush and choose white color. Now hold down Shift, position your bush half way through the edge of the selection (see print screen) and drag it to the other end of the text. This creates half gradient like thing over the text which will act as a highlight. Holding down Shift makes sure that you draw a perfect straight line so you don’t have to worry about shaky hands.  Now deselect the whole thing (Ctrl+D) and set this layer Blending Mode to Overlay, it makes sure that we don’t have a white unnatural high light, as overlay blends it in with colors we already have on the piece.

Step 8. Create some background light. Now pick my favourite big soft round brush and find a dark brown color. Create a new layer behind our text and set Opacity to about 54% and Blending mode to Color Dodge.  Paint 3 big dots on our piece. This creates nice light/reflection like looking things behind our text.  Have a look at my print screen, I’ve selected the dots for you so they are more visible.

Now create another layer, pick a light orange color like i did, give layer 36% Opacity and set Blending Mode to Overlay. Create 3 different sized dots on the screen similar to mine, it will give it a nice light behind.  And you will see how it will come in play later. I’ve selected the dots on the screenshot so u can see where i used them.

Step 9. Lights on! Now we’ll create some magic. Pick soft brush, white color. Create a new layer on top of our text,  now paint two dots over the text with your brush, give layer Opacity of 49% and Blending Mode: Overlay.  See what happened? We’ve added a bit of light. (See the print screen with dots of light selected for your convenience)

More, more light please! Create a new layer, set it to Overlay blending mode again, change brush size to 20px. Click on few places on the text to create really striking highlights. See screenshot to get an idea of how i did it. Keep in mind that all the highlights have to be kept in same places in order to create that graduate light effect. If you just randomly click all over the place – magic won’t happen.

Nice, but we need more natural look. So let’s break the pattern a little. Create another layer on top, set it to Overlay again and with 3 different sized brushes create something similar to what i did on the screenshot. Draw a line and couple of dots. It will make everything a bit more vibrant.

Step 10. Rays of light secret! We will now create rays of light over the highlights that we created. Create a new layer, set blending mode to Overlay again, pick bigger soft brush, white color. Pick Polygonal Lasso Tool, create a selection similar to the one on my screenshot. Draw a line along the selection edge, erase edges if needed to soften it up. Here’s your first ray of light. Now duplicate the layer, hit Ctrl +T and resize it to a smaller one, put it over another high light. Do the same a few times to achieve effect similar to mine.