This is Marty from Blue Lightning TV. I'm going to show you how to create
powerful, exploding text. I provided a set of custom explosion brushes,
as well as an image of cracked soil. Their links are in my video's description or project files.
We'll make a new layer below the texture.
Click the lock icon to unlock the texture and Ctrl-click or Cmd-click the New Layer icon.
We'll fill the empty layer with black, but before we do, check your foreground and background colors.
If they aren't black and white respectively, press "D" on your keyboard. Since black is
our foreground color, press Alt or Option + Delete. Temporarily hide the texture.
Open your Horizontal Type Tool. We want our text to be white, so we can see it
easily. To make our text white, invert the colors by pressing "x" on your keyboard.
Open your Type Picker and pick any heavy font. I'll make its size 183 points, but feel free
to adjust this amount depending on the font you choose and the number of characters in your text.
Just keep in mind that large text has the best results for this effect.
I'll make the aliasing Sharp and center alignment. Click on your document and type out your text.
If you want to adjust the spacing between two characters, known as kerning, click between those
characters and press Alt or Option as you click the right or left arrow key on your keyboard.
As a side note, adjusting your entire line of text at once is called Tracking. To do that,
highlight the entire line with your cursor and use the same hot keys. To center your text,
open your Move Tool and press Ctrl or Cmd + A to select your document. Click the Align Horizontal
Centers icon and the Align Vertical Centers icon. Then, deselect it by pressing Ctrl or Cmd + D.
We'll convert our text into a Smart Object, so we can modify it non-destructively. To do this,
click the icon at the upper right and click "Convert to Smart Object".
Next, we'll bulge out the center of the text. Press Ctrl or Cmd + T to open the Transform Tool.
and click the Warp Transform icon at the top. Click the Custom tab and click "Bulge".
We'll bend it 16%. Then, press Enter or Return of click the checkmark at the top.
Make the texture visible and active. Change its Blend Mode to Multiply.
Make the text layer active and click the New Layer icon to make a new layer above it.
We'll use this layer to brush hard, black strokes along the edge to make our text look more broken.
Invert the colors, so black is the foreground color and open your Pencil Tool. I prefer using
the Pencil Tool for hard strokes rather than using the Brush Tool because pencil tips are already
inherently hard. Open the Pencil Picker. I'll make its size 60 points based on the size of my text.
If you don't see the Legacy Brushes in your list, click the gear icon and click Legacy
Brushes. Open the folder and in the Default Brushes folder, click "Flat Blunt Short Stiff".
Brush along sections of the perimeter of the characters making sure you don't cover too much
of them, so they become illegible. Make a new layer. Open your Brush Tool and Brush Picker.
Close the Legacy Brushes folder. After you install the Explosion Brushes I provided,
open its folder. Before we start adding explosions to our image, click on each
one to see their characteristics. To delete the brush on your screen, just press Ctrl or Cmd "z"
to undo it. In the meantime, let's use the brushes I used to create the final image.
Click "001 Explosion". The size of each brush is noted to its left. This brush is 2048 pixels; however,
we'll reduce the size to 1600 pixels. Invert your colors,
so white is your foreground color. Go to the center of your document and click once.
Open back the Brush Picker and click "005 Explosion". Make its size
4000 pixels. Click near the center. Let's flip the brush, so it's upside down. To do this,
open the Brush Picker and rotate the arrow clockwise or counterclockwise 180 degrees.
If you press and hold the Shift key as you do it, it'll snap to it. Click on your document.
Next, we'll make the explosion look as if its exploding from the center.
First, let's convert the explosion layer into a Smart Object. Go to Filter, Blur and Radial Blur.
Make the Amount 10, Zoom and Best.
To save space, let's collapse the smart filter. Make a new layer.
This time, click the "011" brush and make its size 1500 pixels.
Click once just the left of the center and click again closer to the center.
Click the "012" brush. Make its size also 1500 pixels and click near the center again.
Make a new layer
and click the "003" brush. Make its size 1500 pixels and line it up to the lower, right corner.
Rotate the arrow 180 degrees and click on the upper, left corner. Make the texture
active and make a copy of it by pressing Ctrl or Cmd + J. Change the Blend Mode to Normal.
Ctrl-click or Cmd-click the thumbnail of your text to select its shape. Go to the black shapes
above it and press Ctrl + Alt as you click it on Windows or press Cmd + Option as you click it on
a Mac to delete the black shapes from your text. Click the Layer Mask icon to make a layer mask
of the selection next to the active layer. Make the texture under it active and go to Filter,
Blur and Radial Blur.
The amount is 10, Zoom, and Best.
Make the layer under the texture active and make a copy of it. Drag it up between the textures and
change its Blend Mode to Soft Light. Lastly, we'll brighten our entire image. Make the top layer
active and click the Adjustment Layer icon. Click Brightness/Contrast.
Make the Brightness: 50.
This is Marty from Blue Lightning TV. Thanks for watching!