Hi. This is Marty from Blue Lightning TV.
I'm going to show you a quick technique to to create 3-dimensional, white-on-white text
with subtle, realistic shadows and highlights.
This technique also applies to graphics, as well.
You need Photoshop version CS6 or later to follow along.
If you want to watch my in-depth tutorial using 3D, I provided that link in the video’s
description below.
Before we begin, if you’re not already a subscriber to my channel, hit that small Subscribe
button at the lower, right corner or click the link in my video’s description.
Create a new document by pressing Ctrl or Cmd + N or by going to File and New.
Make the width: 1920 pixels and the height: 1080 pixels.
Make the resolution: 72 pixels per inch.
The Color Mode is RGB and 8 bits per Channel.
If the color box isn’t white, click the Background contents list and pick white.
Then, click “Create” or “Open”.
We're ready to add our text.
Open your Horizontal Type Tool and pick a font.
It can be any font you like.
Depending on the font you pick and the amount of characters in your text, make its size
large enough,so your text will comfortably fit on your document.
Make its aliasing "Sharp" and center alignment.
The color of the text can be anything for now, as long as you can see it well over the white background.
Click on the document and type out your text.
To reposition it, open your Move Tool and move it.
Next, we'll change the text's color to a very light gray; almost white.
Double-click the large "T" of the text layer to highlight your text.
Click the color box at the top to open the Color Picker and in the Brightness field, type in 97.
Your text will have a black rectangle over it, which is normal, since our Type Tool is still active.
Click the text layer and then, right click it to open the fly-out list.
At the bottom, click, "New 3D Extrusion from Selected Layer".
If you see this window, click "Yes" to switch to the 3D workspace.
If you don't see the grid and secondary view window, press Ctrl or Cmd + H or go to View,
Show and make sure all the 3D items in the list are checked.
Click the Layers tab and make the Background layer active.
Go to an empty area of the layer and right-click it.
Click "Postcard".
Shift-click the text layer to make it active, as well, and go to 3D and "Merge 3D Layers".
At this point, your document will look completely white.
Open the 3D panel.
To save space, close the "Background Mesh" list and your text list.
Make the Background Mesh active and as well as your text.
You should now see the text outline.
Go to the 3D Camera icon and drag it to orbit the camera around your image until you can
see the extrusion of your text going through the background.
Click your text to just make it active and make sure the Display Scene icon is active.
In the Properties panel, you can adjust your text's extrusion depth using this slider.
Make the Background active, as well and click the Align Left icon.
This makes your text flush with the background.
At the lower, left corner, you'll notice this widget with arrows.
Right-click the widget and click "Default" which rotates the 3D camera to its original default angle.
We're ready to render it, but before we do, let's check your 3D settings.
Go to Edit, Preferences and 3D.
There are 3 areas we want to check - the Shadow Quality, the Ray Tracer and the Available VRAM for 3D.
If you want the shadow quality to be very high, keep in mind, the higher the quality,
the longer it's take your computer to render.
The Ray Tracer Threshold determines the quality of the rendering.
The higher the Threshold, the less noise you'll have in your final image, but the longer it'll take to render.
Its default amount is 5.
The Render Tile Size determines the size of the sections of your image that Photoshop
renders with each pass.
I generally like to keep it Medium.
VRAM is your video card's memory.
The amount I've allotted Photoshop to use is not necessarily what you should use because
your computer has its own requirements.
To render it, click the Render icon.
It can take anywhere from 10 minutes to over an hour.
Once the rendering completes, open your Layers panel and click the icon at the upper, right corner.
Click "Flatten Image".
This is Marty from Blue Lightning TV.
Thanks for watching!