Logo

Final Image Preview

Step 1

First of all open up a new document and fill it in with black. Then add your text using a font you like and the color #00e5ff.

Step 2

Next duplicate the layer by pressing (Command + J), set the layer Opacity to 65% and move it down and left 1 px each.

Step 3

Next duplicate the text layer in Step 2 four more times. Then move each 1 px down and left as you did before.

Step 4

Next you need to select all the layers except for the background and the first text you created. Now right-click and chose Rasterize Type, then Merge the layers and set the new layer to 47% Opacity.

Step 5

Use the Polygonal Lasso Tool (L) and make a selection, as shown below. Next, use the Smudge Tool (R) set to a Master Diameter of 19 px, Hardness of 100%, Strength of 30%, and smudge the right part of the layer so you can cover up that empty part.

Step 6

Repeat the same process with the other letters.

Step 7

For the lower part of the “S” letter, make a selection as shown, but this time simply erase the unwanted part of the letter by pressing Backspace.

Step 8

Erase the upper part of the letters: “d,” “t,” “u,” and “t,” then erase the lower part of the “s.”

Step 9

Next use the Smudge Tool (R) as you did in Step 5. Use the Smudge Tool for the letters “t,” “t” and “s.”

Step 10

Next move the original text layer above the duplicate. Also, set the Opacity of the duplicated layer to 35%. Select the original text layer and double-click on it to enter the Blending Options and then add a stroke.

Step 11

Next select the text layer below and duplicate it. Use the Pen Tool (P) and create a stroke like below and transform it into a selection. Now simply erase over the selection using the Eraser Tool (E) set to 24% Opacity.

Step 12

Next create a new layer above the duplicated text layers. In this layer add some color to the text. To do this you first need to make a selection of the entire text by holding down the Command key and pressing once on the duplicated text layer thumbnail. Now fill the selection with #ff009c. Don’t mind the blue clouds behind the text.

Step 13

Set the layer to Hue and Opacity to 35%.

Step 14

Make a selection of the first text layer and then go into each of the below layers and press backspace to clear the selected areas. As you can see below, the text effect will still be visible, but we need to erase some areas for future adjustments.

Step 15

Create a new layer below the “pink” layer and make a selection as shown below, then fill the selection with white. Also, set the layer to 38% Opacity and the original “text” layer to 68% Opacity.

Step 16

Make a selection of the original “text” layer. Now use a soft brush for the Eraser Tool (E) to clear the corners of the white layer that don’t look good.

Step 17

Make another selection of the original text layer and create a new layer above it. Then select the Lasso Tool (L) and right-click on the screen and choose stroke. Set the stroke to 2 px and color to #00fcff.

Step 18

Duplicate the stroke from Step 17 and move it like below. Now make a selection as shown, and use the Eraser Tool (E) set to 40% Opacity to erase the stroke that is inside the selection. In the end, set the layer to 10% Opacity.

Step 19

Make another selection on the original text and then subtract like below. Create a new layer above the original “text” layer, and apply the same color as you used for the stroke add a simple gradient. Then add another stroke using #c2feff.

Step 20

Duplicate the “white text” layer and brush over it with the color #f1ff12. Then set the layer Opacity to 23% and move it as shown.

Step 21

Make a selection like below by Command-clicking on the original text thumbnail and inverse the selection. Then using the Eraser Tool (E) you need to erase the edges like in Step 16.

Step 22

Now it is time to get back to the “pink” layer. Activate it and set the Opacity back to 100%. Make a selection like below, invert it and erase the excess using the Eraser Tool (E).

Step 23

Move the “pink” layer you just created above the original text layer and set it to Overlay.

Conclusion

You are finished with the text effect but to make this a bit more interesting I will create another element and that is the plus using the same techniques. Also, add the final element, which is an interesting background that I purchased from Graphic River.

Step 1:

As with pretty much every tutorial I’ve ever written, we begin with a radial gradient. This one is pretty harsh and goes from a reddish brown color to black. Here are the exact color codes:

Foreground color – #922f00
Background color – #000000

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Step 2:

In this tutorial, we actually need a pretty intense center, so what we’ll do is duplicate the layer we just made and set the one above to a blending mode of Color Dodge. There are a few types of blending modes, darkening ones, lightening ones, colorizing ones and inverting ones. Color Dodge is probably the strongest of the lightening ones. As you can see in the screenshot, it produces a pretty full-on center.

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Step 3:

Now in our glow effect, it helps to have a nice textured background. So we are going to create a sort of smoky haze. To do this, create a new layer, then make sure you have white, #ffffff, and black, #000000, selected as your background and foreground colors.

Then go to Filter > Render > Clouds. This will give you the same random cloud pattern as above.

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Step 4:

Now set the opacity of your layer to Overlay and 30% transparency. In some instances this would be enough, but for our needs we want it even smokier looking!

So go to Filter > Sketch > Chrome and use default settings of 4 and 7 for detail and smoothness respectively. Actually you can probably mess around with those if you want, but the defaults seem to be fine.

When you’re done, the result should look a lot smokier (once its overlayed at 30% transparency that is). You can see the result in the background of the next screenshot.

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Step 5:

Now before we can start making glows, we need to have something to glow. Here’s where we break out the pen tool. If you have used the pen tool much I suggest playing around with it a little. There are some tricky things you can do with shortcuts, but for this tutorial you don’t need those.

In fact all we want to achieve are some nice curves. Fortunately this isn’t too hard. I find the trick is not to use too many points. Instead rely on the Pen Tool’s natural curving and drag the mouse out for each point so you get a big angle. In this S-curve shown above, I’ve only used three points, the starting point, the end point and one in between to give it the bend.

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Step 6:

Once you have a nice curve, create a new layer. Then click on the Paintbrush Tool (B) and choose a very thin, hard brush. As you know, soft brushes are the blurry ones and hard brushes are more solid. In this case I suggest using a thickness of 3.

Note that you can have any color selected as your brush color because we’ll go over it with a layer style shortly.

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Step 7:

Now switch back to the Pen Tool. You must switch tools in order to do this next bit.

Then right-click and select Stroke Path. A little dialog box will appear as in the screenshot. Choose Brush and make sure there is a tick next to Simulate Pressure. This is important as it will give your curve tapered ends which will make it rock!

Next right click again and select Delete Path.

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Step 8:

You should now have something like the above. Just a thin, cool swishy thing.

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Step 9:

Now we add some glows. The easiest way to make our glows is to use layer styles. And the best way to tell you what layer styles to use is to tell you to download the sample Photoshop PSD from the bottom of this page and then open it up and look through them there.

In a nutshell, I’ve added two sets of glows. To do this I first use Outer Glow and then because I want a second glow, I change the Drop Shadow settings so that it becomes a glow (you can do this by reducing the Distance and changing the blend mode to something like Color Dodge)

Oh and also I’ve used a Color Overlay to make the item white so that its like the center of an intense glow.

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Step 10:

So now you have the same line but with a cool glow coming off it. The beauty of using a layer style is that you can copy and paste it to other layers. To do this you just right-click the layer and select Copy Layer Style then create a new layer and right-click and choose Paste Layer Style.

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Step 11:

So now repeat the same process a couple of times to make more squiggly lines.

In this instance, I made one a little thicker by changing the paint brush size before I did the Stroke Path bit of the process. I also made a third line and erased part of it and sorta made it join the other two to look like a cool triangular shape.

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Step 12:

Here I’ve added some text in and applied the same layer style to the text layers.

It’s important to pay lots of care and attention to your text. When you’re first starting out, use simple fonts and play with spacing between letters, words and sizes. You can achieve a lot with just some small tricks. Here I’ve contrasted the three words by making Glow a lot larger and in regular casing, then made Advanced and FX much smaller, with greater space between the letters and all caps.

You can control spacing with text using the Character window. If it isn’t already open go to Window > Character and it should appear. Mess about with the different settings until you learn what each controls.

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Step 13:

Now we add some particles. To do this, create a new layer then select a tiny paint brush – size 3 – and just paint some dots on. It helps if they are clustered towards the center of the glow so that it looks like they are emanating from there.

You can make some of the central ones larger by doubling over on them with a second paint brush dab.

Then paste our Glow layer style on to that layer too!

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Step 14:

Now that’s looking pretty cool, but it will look even cooler if we give it some subtle coloring instead of this super gaudy red.

So create a new layer, and using a radial gradient, draw a blue to white gradient as shown.

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Step 15:

Then set that layer to a blending mode of Color and change the opacity to 50%.

You’ll see that it turns the image kind of bluish. I think that’s looking much cooler already, but just to go that extra step I also created a couple of extra layers, one with some faint yellow and one with faint purple. You can see them in the screenshot above.

I set each layer to blending mode of Color and thin opacities so that they all fade together.

One of our readers suggested we write a tutorial explaining how to do this cool text effect. On the Dragonforce logo above, the basis of my typography was sketched on paper first and then vectored in Illustrator using the Pen Tool. The process for creating the base logo is not included in this tutorial. Instead, we are going to take the base logo and add that cool “line gradient” effect that you see inside the actual letters. This gives the text an old-school or vintage feel to it. This look is prevalent in wood engraving and sign lettering. You can do this effect with any typeface or font because the principle is the same.

Step 1: Prepare your base logo or typeface.

We will use our Dragonforce Logo as our base, but you can simply use your favorite font. Just make sure it’s thick and bold to make room for the line effect.

1a: Open up Adobe Illustrator and Photoshop
1b: Create your base text (just type something out using a bold font)

Step 2: Make a new document in Photoshop

You’ll need to make a new document in Photoshop that’s 2500×2500 pixels and 300 DPI. This will be where we will create the line gradient. But first, we need to get your text into Photoshop.

Step 3: Back in Illustrator, select your inner most shape in your text and copy it.

If you’re just using a font, simply click on it to select it. Press Ctrl+C or Edit>Copy to copy the shape to your clipboard.

Step 4: Paste it into your new Photoshop document.

Switch back into your Photoshop document and press Ctrl+V or Edit>Paste to paste your text layer. It will ask if you want to paste it as a Vector Smart Object or as Pixels. Choose pixels.

Step 5: Make the text black.

If your text is already black, skip this step. You can either use brightness & contrast, levels, or whatever you want to make your text black. I did it by Ctrl+Clicking on the layer’s thumbnail image to make a selection around my shape. Then I pressed “D” to reset my colors to black and white and then Alt+Backspace to fill my selection with Black.

Step 6: Give your layer a white “inside” stroke.

Go into your layer properties and give your black text a white stroke. Align the stroke to the “inside” so that it looks like it eats away your text. You’ll see why we are doing this later.

Step 7: Isolate JUST the black layer by using Select > Color Range

From your menu up top, find “Select > Color Rage” and press OK. This should have already selected all the Black pixels by default. If not, you can choose “shadows” from the drop down menu. Once you have the selection made, make a new layer and press Alt+Backspace to fill the layer with black. You can then delete your previous layer with the white stroke. What we just did in the last few steps was make our text “thinner” so our line gradient has some spacing away from the edges of the text.

Step 8: Create your gradient and convert to Bitmap

8a: Ctrl+Click your new layer with just the black “thinned” text to make a selection around your text.
8b: Use your gradient tool to create a black and white gradient from bottom to top of your text.
8c: Select Image>mode>Grayscale – if it’s not there already
8d: Once it’s in Grayscale mode, select Image>Mode>Bitmap and then you’ll get a series of dialog boxes.
8e: Select “Halftone” screen from the dialog box. Make sure your resolution says 300 DPI.

8f: Select a frequency of about 6, angle of 0 degrees, and Shape of “line” – these settings determine how our bitmap will look. Feel free to tweak these to get whatever effect you want.

This what we have created after converting the gradient to a bitmap:

Step 9: Take your image into Illustrator to live trace it!

The easiest way to get your image in Illustrator to Live Trace it is to drag and drop it. So select your Move tool in Photoshop and physically drag your artwork onto the Illustrator button on your taskbar. With your mouse button still held down, hover over the Illustrator button on your taskbar until the Illustrator window pops up. Now you’ll notice that your icon will change when your holding it over the artboard in Illustrator. Let go of the mouse button and your image will be placed into Illustrator. It will most likely be really big and you’ll need to zoom out a bit to see it.

So with it still selected, click the Live Trace button up top, or go to Object>Live Trace. Then click the expand button after that.

9b: Once you have it Live Traced and expanded, right click and ungroup your newly live traced shape. This will separate all the black shapes from the white shapes.
9c: Click on white area around your text (you may not see it, but it’s there) to select a white shape. Then go to select>same>fill color to select all your white shapes. Press Delete to get rid of them. You only need the black shapes.
9d: So now that you’re left with just the black shapes, select all of them by dragging a large selection box around it. Once they’re all selected press Ctrl+G to group them.

Step 10: Scale down your new vectored line gradient and fit it onto your base text

I scaled it down and tweaked the size so it fit perfectly within my original base text. I changed the color to match it. I ended up with my final image below. That’s it!

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