Hey, this is Marty from Blue Lightning TV.
I'm going to show you how to create the look of a retro, classic arcade, video screen.
Before we begin, if you want to know as soon as I upload new Photoshop tutorials,
smash that "Subscribe" button and please remember to click "Like".
I provided this noisy scanlines texture, this image of four "space invader"-style icons,
the font, Kemco Pixel Bold , and a pattern that we'll use to add color texture to our image.
Their links are in my video's description or project files.
Before we type out our text, let's check our foreground and background colors.
If they aren't black and white respectively, press "D" on your keyboard.
Black should be our foreground color.
Open your Type Tool and Type Picker.
After you install the font I provided, type it into the Type Picker field and click it.
Feel free to make it any size you like based on the number of characters in your text and
how large you want it to be on your screen.
For this effect, the aliasing is irrelevant since we'll be blurring it later, however,
I'll choose "None", just so you can see how this font looks without aliasing.
It'll stay super-sharp since there are no curves in any of the characters.
If you're going to type out more than one line of text, feel free to choose any alignment you like.
I'll choose to center it.
Before we type out our text, decide if you want to see the Space Invader-style icons in your final image.
If you don't, just hide that layer.
Click on your document and type out your text.
To center it, open your Move Tool and press Ctrl or Cmd +A to select your entire document.
Click the "Align Horizontal Centers" icon and the "Align Vertical Centers" icon.
Deselect it by pressing Ctrl of Cmd + D. If you want to slide it up or down, first, make
sure Auto-Select is not checked to prevent the space invader icons from moving when we click on our document.
Press and hold the Shift-key as we drag our text up or down.
Pressing Shift kept our text perfectly vertical.
To adjust the spacing between two characters, known as "kerning", click between those characters
and press and hold Alt or Option and the right or left arrow key on your keyboard.
To adjust the spacing between your lines of text, known as "leading", click the Character
panel icon at the top or press the F5 key at the top of your keyboard.
Another way is to go to Window and Character.
Double-click the large "T" in your type layer to highlight all your text and place your cursor over the leading icon.
When it changes into a scrubby slider, drag it to the right or left to increase or decrease the line spacing.
Then, click the checkmark at the top and close the Character panel.
We'll convert our visible image into a Smart Object, so we can modify it con-destructively
and if we want to, replace it with different text and/or graphics without having to re-do the effects.
To do this, Shift-click the bottom layer to make it active as well and click the icon at the upper right.
Click "Convert to Smart Object".
We'll make a new layer below it by Ctrl or Cmd-clicking the New Layer icon.
Click the Adjustment Layer icon and click "Gradient".
Click the gradient bar to open the Gradient Editor.
Find and click the black to white preset.
Click the lower, left Stop and the color box.
In the brightness field, type in 65 and click OK.
Click the lower, right Stop, the color box and for its brightness, type in 20.
Then, click OK on both windows or press Enter or Return twice.
Make the Style: Radial, the Angle: 30 degrees, and the Scale: 110%.
Double-click an empty area of the top layer to open its Layer Style window.
Click "Inner Glow" and the color box.
Pick white and click OK.
The Blend Mode is Normal, the Opacity is 100%, and the Noise is 0.
The Technique is "Softer", the Source is "Center", the Choke is 0, and the Size is 30 pixels.
The Contour is linear, and the Range is 50%.
Click "Color Overlay" and the color box.
In the hexadecimal field, type in 91FFCA.
The Blend Mode is Normal, and the opacity is 100%.
Click "Outer Glow" and the color box.
Type in: 71FFFA.
The Blend Mode is Overlay, the Opacity is 20%, and the Noise is 0.
The Technique is Softer, the Spread is 0, and the Size is 75%.
Click "Drop Shadow".
The color is white, the Blend Mode is Normal, the opacity is 20%, and the Angle is 30 degrees.
The Distance and Spread are both 0, and the Size is 75 pixels.
Go to Filter, Blur, and Gaussian Blur.
Blur it 8 pixels.
To save space in the Layers panel, let's collapse the effects.
After you install the pattern I provided, click the Adjustment Layer icon and click "Pattern".
Open your pattern presets and scroll to the bottom of the list.
Click the new pattern.
The Angle is 0 degrees, and the Scale is 8%.
Change the Blend Mode to "Hard Light" and make its opacity 80%.
Open the scanlines texture I provided.
We'll place it onto our arcade video game screen by pressing Ctrl or Cmd + A to select
the entire document and Ctrl or Cmd + C to copy it.
Open back the video game screen document and press Ctrl or Cmd + v to paste in the scanlines texture.
Change the Blend Mode of the texture to Color Burn and convert it into a Smart Object.
Go to Filter, Blur, and Gaussian Blur.
Blur it 3 pixels.
Next, we'll adjust its color to make it look a bit greener.
Click the Adjustment Layer icon and, click "Color Lookup".
Click "Load 3D LUT".
Every filter in this list is essentially a color grade preset.
LUT stands for "Look-up table".
It's a tool used in cinematography that lets filmmakers, editors, and colorists save color grades as a template.
Click "DropBlues.3DL" which minimizes blues and results in a greener color.
Presently, there s too much green, so we'll reduce the adjustment layer's opacity to 30%.
Lastly, I'll show you how to quickly change your text and/or graphics.
Double the thumbnail of the text layer to open its source.
Whatever text and/or graphics we replace this layer with will automatically take on the
effects of new retro, arcade video game screen.
For this example, double-click the large "T" in the thumbnail to highlight all your text.
Type in your new text and reposition it.
Then, press Enter or Return or click the checkmark at the top.
Close this tab and when you see this message, click "Yes" to replace your original text with the new text.
Voila!
It's that easy!
This is Marty from Blue Lightning TV. Thanks for watching!