Hi. This is Marty from Blue Lightning TV.
I'm going to show you how to create the look of skywriting.
This is an update of previous tutorials I did years ago on earlier versions of Photoshop.
I provided this image of a blue sky with cirrus clouds that we'll use for our base.
Its link is in my video's description or project files.
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The first step is to create the text.
Open your Horizontal Type Tool and Type Picker.
Pick an ultra-thin typeface that's easy to read.
I'm using "Kozuka Gothic Pro Extra Light".
I provided its link as well.
Click on your document and type out your text.
To adjust its size, highlight your text and press and hold the Size scrubby slider as you drag to the right or left.
If it's two or more lines, I'll show you how to adjust the space between the lines.
Go to Window and Character.
In the Character panel, drag the Baseline Shift scrubby slider to the left or right.
We want out text to have approximately this much space between the characters.
To adjust the space, known as "tracking", drag the Tracking scrubby slider to the left or right.
We can close the Character panel now.
To center it over your document, open your Move Tool and press Ctrl or Cmd + A to select
the entire document and click the Align Horizontal Centers icon and the Align Vertical Centers icon.
Then, press Ctrl or Cmd +D to deselect it.
Ctrl-click or Cmd-click the large "T" of the text layer to make a selection of the text.
Hide the text and click the New Layer icon to make a new layer.
Open the Paths panel.
If you don't see it, go to Window and Paths.
Click the icon at the upper, right and click "Make Work Path".
Keep the Tolerance 0.5 pixels.
Open back the Layers panel and open your Brush Tool.
Press the F5 key at the top of your keyboard to open the Brush Settings panel.
Click "Brush Tip Shape".
Make the Size: 125 pixels, the Roundness: 100%, the Hardness: 0% and the Spacing: 25%.
Click "Shape Dynamics".
The Size Jitter is 100% and all the Controls are "Off".
The Minimum Diameter and Angle Jitter are 0%, the Roundness Jitter is 30% and the Minimum Roundness: 25%.
Flip X and Y Jitters are checked.
Click "Texture" and open the Pattern list.
We're going to use the "Clouds" pattern.
If you don't see it, go to Window and Patterns.
Click the icon at the upper, right of the Patterns panel and click "Legacy Patterns and More".
Close the panel and press F5 again to open back the Brush Settings panel.
Open the patterns list.
Scroll down and click the "Legacy Patterns and More" folder.
Open the "Legacy Patterns" folder.
Scroll to the "Patterns" folder and open it.
Click "Clouds".
Check "Invert".
The Scale is 160% and the Brightness and Contrast are 0.
Check "Texture Each Tip".
The Mode is Color Burn, the Depth is 100%, the Depth Jitter is Off and the Control is Off.
Click "Transfer".
In much earlier versions of Photoshop, it's called "Other Dynamics".
The Opacity Jitter is 20%, the Controls are Off and the Flow Jitter is 50%.
Check: Smoothing".
If your foreground and background colors aren't black and white respectively, press "D" on your keyboard.
We want white to be our foreground color, so invert them by pressing "x".
Open the Paths panel and the flyout list.
Click "Stroke Path".
Choose the "Brush" tool and make sure "Simulate Pressure" is not checked.
To hide the work path, click anywhere on the Paths panel below the layer.
Next, we'll angle our skywriting in perspective with the sky.
Open back the Layers panel.
To give us more room on the canvas, zoom out by pressing Ctrl or Cmd and the minus key on our keyboard.
Press Ctrl or Cmd + T to open the Transform Tool.
Go to a top corner and press and hold Alt + Ctrl + Shift on Windows or Option + Cmd
+ Shift on a Mac as you drag the corner out approximately this much.
Notice the other top corner mirrored the move.
To adjust its overall size, hover your cursor over a top corner until you see a double-diagonal line.
If you're using CC 2019 or later, press and hold Alt or Option as you drag it in or out.
On earlier versions, press and hold Alt or Option + Shift as you drag it.
To reposition it over the sky, go inside the bounding box and drag it.
Then, press Enter or Return.
To zoom back in, press Ctrl or Cmd and the plus key.
Next, we ll blend the skywriting into the background sky, but before we do, we'll convert
our skywriting into a Smart Object, so we can add filters and layer styles to it non-destructively.
To do this, click the icon at the upper, right and click "Convert to Smart Object".
Double-click an empty area of the skywriting layer to open its Layer Style window.
We'll use the "Blend If" feature to blend in our skywriting.
I've done many tutorials explaining how this feature works, but basically, Blend If blends
layers together using luminosity of their pixels.
"This Layer" is the active layer, which in this case, is our skywriting layer and the
"Underlying Layer" is the background sky.
By dragging the Underlying Layer sliders to the left or right, it punches the background
sky through our skywriting.
To smooth out the blending and create more of a transition between the two layers,
Alt or Option-click the center of the Underlying Layer icon to split it in two.
Dragging the left half of the icon smooths out the lighter areas of the skywriting,
while dragging the right half of the black Underlying Layer smooths out its darker areas.
Lastly, we'll blur the skywriting a bit to blend it into the sky even more.
Go to Filter, Blur and Motion Blur.
The Angle is 0 degrees and the Distance is 10 pixels.
Go back to Filter, Blur and Gaussian Blur.
Blur it 2 pixels.
This is Marty from Blue Lightning TV. Thanks for watching!