This is Marty from Blue Lighting TV.
I'm going to show you how to create atmospheric, spooky text appearing through dense mist in
the dead of night.
This is an update of a tutorial I did many years ago on a much earlier version of Photoshop.
Before we begin, if you haven't yet subscribed to Blue Lightning TV, click that Subscribe
button to let you know as soon as I upload new Photoshop tutorials.
I upload a new one every week.
Create a new document by going File and New.
Make its Width: 1920 pixels, its Height: 1080 pixels and its Resolution: 150 pixels per
inch.
The Color Mode is RGB and 8 bits per Channel.
Open the "Custom" tab and click "Black".
Then, click "Create".
Check your foreground and background colors.
If they aren't black and white, respectively, press "D" on your keyboard.
Go to Filter, Render and Clouds.
Click the lock icon to unlock the layer and change its Blend Mode to "Color Dodge".
Make a new layer below it by Ctrl-clicking or Cmd-clicking the New Layer icon.
Fill it with black by pressing Alt or Option + Delete, which fills it with the foreground
color.
Temporarily hide the clouds layer by clicking the eyeball icon next to it.
Click the foreground color box, which open the Color Picker.
In the hexadecimal field, type in: 01386B.
Then, click OK or press Enter or Return.
Notice, our foreground color is the color we just typed in.
Open your Brush Tool and Brush Picker and pick a soft, round brush.
Make its size 600 pixels and the Hardness: 0%.
Press the F5 key at the top of your keyboard to open the Brush Settings panel.
Click "Brush Tip Shape" and slide the "Spacing" all the way to the left.
Then, close the panel.
Before we brush color over the black background, let's quickly review the difference between
opacity and flow.
Opacity controls the opaqueness of the paint, while Flow controls the speed at which paint
is laid down, much like painting with a spray paint can.
I brushed two lines using the same dark blue color we typed in.
I'll open the Levels window and drastically increase the Highlight level amount, so we
can see how they react.
The top line s opacity is 10% and its Flow is 100%, while the bottom line s opacity is
100% and its Flow is 1%.
Notice how the top line looks segmented, while the bottom line has no segments at all.
This one is what we'll use to brush in the color.
Make the clouds layer visible again.
Make its Opacity 100% and its Flow: 1%.
Brush over the black background mainly in the center areas.
The result will look better if we enlarge the clouds a bit.
To do this, make the clouds active and open your Transform Tool by pressing Ctrl or Cmd
+ T. At the top, make sure the chain-link icon is active, which links the width and
the height.
In either field, place your cursor over the "W" or the "H as you drag the scrubby slider
to the right.
For now, let's drag it to approximately 150%.
You could also just type it in.
Make the background active and click the New Layer icon to make a new layer above it.
Open your Horizontal Type Tool.
Since we want our text to be white, we'll invert the foreground and background colors
by pressing "x" on our keyboard.
Make the clouds layer visible again and make your brush size: 600 pixels, it's Opacity
100% and its Flow: 1%.
Brush over the black background mainly in the center areas.
The result will look better if we enlarge the clouds a bit.
To do this, make the clouds active and open your Transform Tool by pressing Ctrl or Cmd
+ T. At the top, make sure the chain-link icon is active, which links the width and
the height.
Place your cursor over the "W" or the "H" and press and hold your mouse or pen as you
drag the scrubby slider to the right.
For now, let's drag it to approximately 150%.
You could also just type it in.
Make the background active and click the New Layer icon to make a new layer above it.
Open your Horizontal Type Tool.
Since we want our text to be white, we'll invert the foreground and background colors
by pressing "x" on our keyboard.
Pick a font.
I'm using "Paranoia", which I included its link to in the video's description.
I'll make its size 100 points, but feel free to adjust the amount based on the font you
choose and the amount of characters in your text.
The aliasing is Smooth and the alignment is centered.
Click on your document and type out your text.
If you have two lines or more and want to adjust the space between the lines, known
as "leading", highlight the text and go to Window and Character.
Drag the Leading scrubby slider to the left or right.
To adjust the spacing between all the characters, known as "tracking", slide the Tracking scrubby
slider.
To adjust the spacing between two characters, known as "kerning", click between the two
characters and press and hold Alt or Option and the right or left bracket key.
Once you're happy with your text's leading, tracking and kerning, you can close the Character
panel.
If you want to adjust its size, click your Move Tool and open your Transform Tool.
Go to a corner.
If you're using a version earlier than CC 2019, press and hold Alt or Option + Shift
as you drag it out or in.
For later versions, just press Alt or Option as you drag it.
Then, press Enter or Return.
To center it, press "v" to open your Move Tool and move it.
We'll convert our text into a Smart Object, so we can modify it non-destructively and
allow us to replace the text without having to redo the effects.
To do this, click the icon at the upper, right and click "Convert to Smart Object".
Reduce its opacity to 50% and make a copy of it by pressing Ctrl or Cmd + J. Go to Filter,
Blur and "Motion Blur".
Make its Angle: 90 degrees and the Distance: 100 pixels.
We'll convert our two text layers into one Smart Object by Shift-clicking the bottom
text to make it active, as well, and converting them into a Smart Object.
Change the Blend Mode to "Overlay".
Go to Filter, Blur and "Gaussian Blur".
Blur it 2 pixels.
Go back to Filter, Distort, and Wave.
The "Number of Generators " is 1, the Wavelength is 200 and 630, the Amplitude is 1 and 100
and the Scale is 100%.
The Type is "Sine" and the Undefined Areas is "Repeat Edge Pixels".
Make a copy of the layer and double-click the copy's Gaussian Blur to open it.
If you first see this message, it's just letting us know that the Smart Filters will be temporarily
turned off while we edit the filter.
Just click OK.
Make its Radius: 10 pixels.
Go to Filter, Blur and "Motion Blur".
Make the Angle: 0 degrees and the Distance: 40 pixels.
Next, we'll smudge parts of our letterforms to give them an ethereal quality.
However, Smart Filters won't allow us to smudge them, so we'll have to rasterize the layer
to do this.
Before we do, let's save space in the layers panel by collapsing the smart filters.
We'll be smudging just the bottom text layer to achieve the result we want.
Make the bottom text active and right-click or secondary-click an empty area of it to
open the fly-out list.
Click "Rasterize Layer".
Open the "Smudge Tool" and Brush Picker.
Make its size approximately 100 pixels, the Hardness: 0% and the Strength: 25.
Brush over parts of the characters to smudge them.
We can increase or decrease the brightness of any area of our text by making the clouds
layer active and opening our Brush Tool.
Make sure the Opacity is 100% and the Flow is 1%.
To brighten areas, make sure your foreground color is white and then, brush over the parts
you want to brighten.
To decrease the brightness of areas that are bloomed out, make the brush size smaller and
press "D" on our keyboard to make our colors default to black and white respectively.
Since black is our foreground color, we'll be brushing black over the clouds.
Continue to brush black or white over your image until you're happy with the way your
text looks.
I think I'd like to increase the size of my clouds, so I'll open the Transform Tool to
increase its size.
This is Marty from Blue Lightning TV.
Thanks for watching and remember to like, subscribe and share.