In this video, I'm going to show you how to create
furry text in Photoshop.
We're going to take this photo of a close-up of a cat and we're going to convert it into furry text.
This tutorial is going to teach you a lot about working with Layer Mask,
custom brushes, text, and a whole lot more.
Also, if want to follow along with me, make sure you download the tutorial image.
The link is in the description.
We're going to work with just one character in this tutorial,
but obviously in your projects you can use as many characters as you want.
I just want to keep things simple for you.
All right.
So, with this Layer selected, I'm going to click on the Horizontal Type Tool
and I'm going to select Arial Rounded as my font, and
I'm just going to type the letter C for cat.
Then, I'll select the Move Tool, press Ctrl T, Command T to transform,
and scale this text up be clicking and dragging on the corner handles.
If you need to, you can reposition your letter.
I think mine looks fine where it is.
Next, I'm going to go into the Layers panel
and move the Fur Layer up on top of the Layer Stack.
Then, I'll duplicate the Fur Layer by pressing Ctrl J on Windows, Command J on the Mac.
So, I'll disable the copy on top, select the copy at the bottom,
and press Ctrl Alt G, Command Option G on the Mac to create a Clipping Mask.
In other words, the Layer on the bottom will control the visibility of the Layer on top.
Next, create a solid Color Fill.
The color's not important, I'll use the gray that's already here, and
press OK.
Next, you need to place the Color Fill Layer at the bottom of the Layer Stack, and
let me show you a keyboard shortcut that allows you to do just that.
You can press Ctrl and the left bracket key on Windows,
Command and the left bracket key on the Mac
to move a Layer down
or you can press Ctrl and the right bracket key on Windows,
Command right bracket key on the Mac to move a Layer up in the Layer Stack.
So, I'm just going to place this Layer way at the bottom
by holding Ctrl and tapping on the left bracket key until it's all the way at the bottom.
And, what I'm going to do now is enable this Layer,
but I'm also going to hide it, so I'm going to hold Alt on Windows,
Option on the Mac and click on the Layer Mask icon to create a black Layer Mask.
And, that means that everything in that Layer will be hidden, and
we can now selectively paint back areas.
And that's just what we're going to do,
but we're going to do it with a brush that is no longer found in the new version of Photoshop.
We actually have to go and bring that back.
But, you can find it by default in older versions of Photoshop.
So, if you're in the latest version of Photoshop like I am,
what you need to do is select the Brush Tool, click on this down-pointing arrow, and
then click on the gear icon, and
select Legacy Brushes.
Photoshop will ask you if you want to bring them back, just press OK, and
now we have this group here titled Legacy Brushes.
All these Brushes are on by default in older versions of Photoshop,
so you don't need to worry about this step, you just need to find the right Brush in the list.
So, I'm going to click on Default Brushes, and
I'm going to scroll down, and
just find a brush titled Dune Grass.
And, I'm going to close this panel and create a new Layer to show you how this Brush works.
I'll make the Brush larger by tapping on the right bracket key on the keyboard and I'll paint.
And as you can see, we get that furry effect.
This Brush is meant to help you paint grass and you can see that this Brush takes the
foreground color and the background color and it mixes it together.
For example, if my background color was red, it would mix red with white and the colors
in-between.
But, I really don't want that, I just want one single color,
so what I'm going to do is click on this icon to bring up the Brushes Settings
and then I'm going to disable Color Dynamics, so that when I paint,
I just paint with the foreground color.
In this case, the foreground color is red.
And, that's what I want, I want to be able to paint with just one color.
Next, I'll delete this Layer and I'll zoom in real close to the text.
And, what I'm going to do is just click on the Layer Mask and paint with white to reveal.
And, I want to reveal the fur, but that's obviously way too big,
so I'm going to undo that, tap on the left bracket key on the keyboard, and
then just paint again.
Still too big, but we also have another problem.
The direction where that fur is going.
The fur's actually going the other way, so what you need to do is click on this icon
to bring up the Brush Settings, and
then you can rotate the fur, and
you can also flip the axis of the fur.
For example, I can click on Flip X and the fur rotates the other way.
And when I paint, the fur that I'm painting is following the direction of- of the fur
in the photo.
And actually, it's not 100% the same, but I can rotate it and then just paint to see
the result.
And, that looks a little bit better.
The brush is still pretty big, but that's okay, I'm going to undo all of this in a moment.
I'm also going to decrease the spacing, so that I can get fur that is closer together, and
I'm also going to rotate it just a little bit more, like so.
And, that looks much, much better.
So, I'm just going to undo all these brushstrokes.
The settings will not change.
And, when I paint, now I get that same result.
What I'm going to do now is make the Brush a little bit smaller.
And, what you can do, is you can simply start painting the fur in, like so.
You'll get much better results if you do everything by hand just because you can control everything
so much better.
But, if you want to, you can also automate the process.
Before I show you how to automate the process
I also want to point out that in some cases, you will need to uncheck the Flip X check box,
rotate the angle of the Brush, so that you can match the angle of the fur.
And, when you paint, it should match much better.
But anyway, what I think that I'll do now is show you this automated technique.
And, let me just make sure that the fur is matching accordingly, like so.
So, it matches really, really good now.
And, what I can do now is select Shape Dynamics and under Angle Jitter,
I'm going to select Direction, so that when I paint now, Photoshop will just follow that
direction, like so.
Now, let me show you how you can automate this process.
I'll delete the Layer Mask, I'll collapse this for now, and
I'll create a new black Layer Mask, which hides everything.
You can create one by holding Alt on Windows, Option on the Mac, and
clicking on the Layer Mask icon.
Then, hovering over the Text Layer thumbnail, holding Ctrl, Command on the Mac, and
clicking to make a selection out of the character.
Then I can go into the Path panel and from here, I can create a Path
by clicking on this icon.
You can see my Work Path here now.
And, if I go back into the Layers panel, make sure that my Layer Mask is selected, and
make sure I have the right settings on my Brush Tool.
The settings are going to be the same settings that we just applied, and
I know that they will work.
I can apply a stroke using the Brush Tool that follows the Path.
All I need to do is go back into the Path panel, right click, and
select Stroke Path.
Under Tool, make sure that you select Brush Tool, and
press OK, and
Photoshop will stroke that Path and create furry text.
So, when you're working on your project, you'll have to decide if you want to do it by hand
or use this automated method.
I think that the automated method looks pretty good, but usually doing things by hand, gives
you better result.
You can also do a combination of both.
You can start with the automated method and then paint in the details that you need.
In some cases, with some letters,
there might be some corners and things like that,
that don't look as good in the automated method, and
that's where you can go in and fine-tune it by hand.
Totally up to you.
Next, let me show you how to enhance this effect.
Select the top most Layer, hold Shift, and
click on the Text Layer.
Make sure that you do not include the Color Fill here.
Then, you can press Ctrl G on Windows, Command G on the Mac to put those Layers into a group.
And, you can now apply Layer Styles to this group to make the furry text look more realistic.
You can click to the side of the group,
to bring up the Layer Style window and you can apply a Layer Style for example,
a Bevel & Emboss Layer Style, which gives shape to the Text Layer.
I'm using Overlay set to white for the highlights and Overlay in black on the shadows.
And then, I can adjust the Depth accordingly, the Size, and
how Soft that is.
You could also click on the Drop Shadow to add a Drop Shadow to the image.
Make sure that you add a little bit of Noise, so that the shadows are not so smooth and soft,
and you can increase the shadows and make 'em
darker if you like.
Totally up to you how you want to apply these adjustments.
You can also apply an Inner Glow, but make sure that you set it to Normal, and
also change the Color to black and press OK.
And, adjust the different settings,
like the Opacity and the Size,
so that we can have a nice shadow in the inside giving this character shape.
This is my final result using a full word and a different background.
I would love to see your results.
If you decide to upload this onto Instagram, make sure that you use the hashtag PTCVIDS.
Thank you so much for watching.
I'll talk to you again in the next video.