Fireworks Text Effect

Quick reference

• 00:04 Hey, everybody.
• 00:05 Howard Pinski here with my first tutorial of the new year.
• 00:09 If you're like me and didn't go out to enjoy the fireworks last night,
• 00:12 you may be looking for a way to create your own.
• 00:14 And what better way to create them in Photoshop.
• 00:17 We're gonna be using custom brushes and
• 00:19 layer styles to create this fireworks text effect.
• 00:22 Let's get to it.
• 00:24 As I didn't end up going out last night, I grabbed this image from shutterstock.com,
• 00:28 but if you're not as anti-social as I am and you did go out last night,
• 00:32 feel free to use an image of your own for this tutorial.
• 00:35 We first want to set up our text,
• 00:36 which is going to end up as the path that our brush will use.
• 00:40 For a design like this, a very thin hand-drawn font will work nicely.
• 00:44 I found this second lyrics font over at dafont.com.
• 00:48 And as this image is fairly large,
• 00:49 I'm gonna be using a font size of around 175 points.
• 00:52 You may have to resort to a larger or
• 00:55 smaller font depending on the size of your image.
• 00:58 I'm also gonna be increasing the tracking for this font just a touch.
• 01:01 If I open up my Character panel, which I can activate under the Window menu.
• 01:05 I can increase the spacing between the characters by
• 01:08 increasing the tracking value.
• 01:11 100 should do the trick.
• 01:13 Now that our text is typed out, we need to create a work path from this type layer.
• 01:17 This will allow us to paint along a path, once our brushes are set up.
• 01:22 In your Layers panel, right-click on the Type layer and
• 01:24 choose the Create Work Path option towards the top.
• 01:27 You should see the path become visible around the type.
• 01:30 If you don't, you can use a shortcut key to reveal it,
• 01:33 Cmd+Shift+H on the Mac or Ctrl+Shift+H on Windows.
• 01:37 That will hide or show that path.
• 01:39 You can actually go ahead and
• 01:40 hide the Type layer itself, as we're not gonna be using it for this design.
• 01:44 Now let's go ahead and start customizing some brushes.
• 01:47 Start off by creating a new layer in your Layers panel, and
• 01:50 then grab your brush tool from the Tools bar.
• 01:53 Both brushes that we are going to be starting with can be found in the default
• 01:56 brushes that come with Photoshop.
• 01:58 Opening up your brush picker,
• 01:59 the first brush that we're gonna start with will be the Dune Grass Brush.
• 02:03 Make sure to select the one that contains a single blade and not three.
• 02:07 Now we can start customizing it,
• 02:08 which can be done in the Brush panel, found again, under the Window menu.
• 02:13 Starting in the brush tip shape section, go ahead and
• 02:15 decrease the size of the brush until it's about the same thickness as the text.
• 02:19 Your value may be different than mine, but
• 02:21 around forty pixels will work for this example.
• 02:24 Now, in Shape Dynamics you're gonna want to max out the size, the angle and
• 02:28 the roundness jitters.
• 02:29 This will give us some nice variations to the brush as it's being applied.
• 02:33 Finally, set the control at the top to pen pressure.
• 02:37 Now even if you're not using a tablet,
• 02:39 this will allow the brush to fade out at the beginning and the end of the stroke.
• 02:43 Next in the scattering section,
• 02:45 we're gonna start with a scatter set to around 100% and the count set to four.
• 02:49 But once we apply the first stroke,
• 02:51 we're gonna be increasing the scatter to add some extra sparks around the text.
• 02:55 And, finally, to finish off our customization, go ahead and
• 02:58 turn off Color Dynamics on the left.
• 03:01 Now we can apply the first brushstroke to our path.
• 03:03 For the first stroke, you're gonna wanna grab your Pen Tool from the Tools Bar and
• 03:07 then right-click on the Visible Path and then choose the Stroke Path option.
• 03:12 When this window appears, make sure to select Brush from the drop-down and
• 03:16 turn Simulate Pressure on.
• 03:18 This will use the pen pressure control that we set a moment ago.
• 03:21 When you press OK, the first brush stroke will be made.
• 03:24 Now, once the first stroke has been made,
• 03:26 you don't need to follow these steps all over again.
• 03:29 All you have to do now is jump back into your brush tool,
• 03:31 shortcut key B, and then press the Return or Enter key on your keyboard.
• 03:36 Now we'll repeat the stroke path command with the settings that you just set.
• 03:40 Now, to add a few more sparks to the text,
• 03:42 I'm gonna increase the scatter value to around 300%.
• 03:44 And one more time, press Return or Enter on the keyboard.
• 03:48 Perfect.
• 03:49 To finish off this layer, let's go ahead and add a simple outer glow layer style.
• 03:53 For this layer, I'm gonna set the blend mode to linear dodge.
• 03:56 With a 50% Opacity, and a light red color FF6D6D.
• 04:01 Of course, you can use whichever color you like for your fireworks.
• 04:07 Now down below, I'm gonna crank up the size to 250 pixels.
• 04:11 And decrease the range to around 30%.
• 04:13 This glow will act as the glow that goes behind the fireworks.
• 04:17 Our next layer will be much stronger.
• 04:19 So now that this layer is complete, go ahead and create another new layer.
• 04:23 And open up your brush picker once again.
• 04:25 This time you're looking for
• 04:26 the 70 pixel star brush which conveniently is right beside our grass brush.
• 04:32 Now, in terms of customization, in the Brush Tip Shape section, increase
• 04:36 the spacing of this brush to around 50% so they're not all clumped up together.
• 04:41 Now in shape dynamics the settings that we last used
• 04:44 should automatically appear once you activate it.
• 04:46 But if they didn't, max out the jitter values and
• 04:49 make sure that the control is set to pen pressure.
• 04:52 Finally, turn on scattering, but leave the settings as they are for the moment.
• 04:56 One hundred percent for the scatter and four for the count.
• 04:59 And just like before we need to stroke the path.
• 05:01 Because we've already set the stroke options, we can simply press Return or
• 05:05 Enter to apply the brush.
• 05:07 I'm going to apply it about three or four times and then increase the scattering
• 05:10 a touch to add some additional sparkles around the text.
• 05:14 At this point you may not be able to see much of the new brush that we
• 05:16 just applied.
• 05:17 Let's go ahead and add an outer glow to this layer to make it more visible.
• 05:21 The blend mode for
• 05:21 this layer is also gonna be linear dodge, but the opacity's gonna be kept at 75%,
• 05:25 and the color's going to be slightly more orange than the last one.
• 05:30 FF6C00, the glow in this layer's gonna be much tighter than the last one, so
• 05:35 the size is only gonna be increased to around 20 pixels.
• 05:39 And that should leave you with a glowing, sparkling fireworks text effect.

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