How's it going everyone, this is Chris from Spoon Graphics back with another video tutorial
for Adobe Photoshop.
Last week I showed you how to create a slimy text effect in Adobe Illustrator, so I thought
I'd cover a similar topic this week but in Photoshop instead.
The vector Illustrator artwork is quite flat, whereas you can achieve much more realism
with gradients and filters in Photoshop.
The effect we'll be producing in this tutorial is a glossy text effect made out of some kind
of gooey substance.
It's made by combining a cocktail of built-in layer styles, so let's get started and I'll
show you how it's done.
Begin by creating a new document in Adobe Photoshop.
I'm using a size of 3000x1700px.
Use the ALT and Backspace shortcut to fill the canvas with black.
Just like the previous tutorial I'll be using a script font as the basis for my text effect,
but you could use your own custom type.
The font I'm using here is a premium typeface named No Seven Black.
The great thing about premium typefaces like this is they're packed with stylistic alternate
characters that allow you to fully customise the appearance.
I'll leave a link in the description if you fancy checking it out for yourself, and if
you're watching this tutorial right after it went live, there's currently a 99% off
fonts bundle on offer at Design Cuts if you want to upgrade your font library with some
pro grade typefaces while saving a small fortune.
Once you have your type in place, right click on the layer and select Convert To Smart Object.
Next, head to Filter > Noise > Median, choose a value that's high enough to round off all
the corners, but not so much that it ends up adding blurry bits.
20px worked for me.
To customise the text further, go to Filter > Liquify.
You can use the liquify tool to both warp the outline of the text slightly, and to add
some drips.
Alter the brush size with the square bracket keys and click and drag to affect the artwork.
To bring the effect to life, we need to add a cocktail of layer styles.
Double click the layer and begin with a Gradient Overlay.
The preset I'm using is actually from my free collection of DuoTone gradients, but the colours
are an orange of #fb4732 to a yellow of #fee949.
Next apply an Inner Glow to add some depth to the text.
Change the settings to Multiply and black, then adjust the size to around 60px and the
opacity to 30%.
Add an Inner Shadow next, using the settings, Overlay, Black, 120 degrees, then 45px Distance,
0 Choke and 80px Size.
Add a Bevel and Emboss effect next, then start editing the settings from the bottom up by
changing the Shadows to Overlay at 20% and highlights to Color Dodge at 80%
Click the little arrow to open the contour settings, then open the Contour profiles from
the little Settings icon.
Append them to your existing list.
Scroll down and choose the profile with two thin peaks, the third one along.
You can always come back and experiment with the other profiles.
Check the Anti-Aliased option to ensure there's no jaggy lines.
Uncheck the Use Global Light option in order to set custom shading, then add 120 degrees
Angle and 60 degrees Alititude.
Play around with the Size and Depth sliders to find a cool looking spread of highlights.
I used a depth of 365 and a Size of 70 in my example, with a 1px Soften to take the
edge off the highlights.
Click on the Contour sub-menu under Bevel and Emboss and change this profile to the
S bend shape.
Apply the Anti-Aliased effect and reduce the Range to 40%.
The basic glossy text effect is complete, but we can add some more details by simply
overlaying a photograph of raindrops on a window.
Find a free image like this from Unsplash.com.
Select All, copy and paste it into the main document.
Press CMD+T to Transform and scale the image down to fit over the text.
Change the blending mode to Color Dodge, then reduce the Fill amount in the Layers panel
to around 40%.
Apply a sharpen filter to help bring out the details, then go to Filter > Noise > Add Noise.
Configure the settings to 20%, Uniform and Monochromatic.
This photo overlay helps add those subtle drops that look a little like bubbles within
this yellow ooze.
You can experiment with other image overlays to see what other effects you can produce.
Hold the CMD key and click on the text layer's thumbnail to load its selection, then add
a layer mask to the photo layer to clip it to size.
To add some more finishing touches, select the Background layer and hit CMD+L to open
the Levels.
Move the output slider slightly to brighten the black background to a dark grey.
Add a Drop Shadow effect to the text, using values of around 30px distance and 50px size.
Deselect the Use Global Light option to set the shadow to 90 degrees underneath the text.
Finally, add a new layer above the background and set up a large soft brush with a white
foreground colour.
Dab a couple of spots underneath the text, then set the opacity to a really low value
like 8% to leave a subtle glow in the centre of the canvas.
The final result is a cool glossy text effect that could be used to represent all kinds
of viscous fluids, depending on the colour scheme you choose.
The subtle shading helps add some depth to the text, while the Bevel and Emboss layer
style does a great job of simulating the reflections.
So I hope you find this tutorial useful, if you did be sure to hit the subscribe button
to stick around for all my upcoming tutorials.
Head over to my Spoon Graphics website to grab my free bundle of design resources, otherwise
thank you very much for watching, and I'll see you in the next one!