Locked lesson.
About this lesson
In this tutorial Howard will introduce you to Displacement Mapping, which is a fancy way of saying ‘making text bumpy’.
Exercise files
There are no related exercise files for this lesson, or we cannot provide them due to copyright issues.
Quick reference
Topic Graffiti Text
Apply text to bumpy surfaces.
When to use
In this tutorial Howard will introduce you to Displacement Mapping, which is a fancy way of saying ‘making text bumpy’. Actually it’s a little more complicated than that, as you can use the underlying surface to dictate how and where the bumps go… Cool eh?
Instructions
Create a displacement map for latter use
- Load the texture background file.
- Command or control shift + U to desiderate the layer (black and white).
- Add a Levels Adjustment layer: levels. Drag the right and left sliders towards the middle to boost the contrasts.
- Save as a PSD file and close.
Create the text
- Load the original texture background file again.
- Use an appropriate font and type in.
- Layer styles:
Gradient Overlay: Gradient Color Left: Dark Blue, Gradient Color Right: Light Blue.
Stroke: Size: 9, color: white.
Inner Shadow: Blend mode: Normal, Opacity: 100%, Global light: Off, Size: 9, Angle: 90, Distance: 30, color: Dark Blue, Choke: 0%.
Outer Glow: Blend mode: Normal, Opacity: 100%, Global light: Off, Angle: 90, Technique: Precise, color: Light green, Spread: 100%, Size: 25.
Some Displacement Magic
- Convert text to a smart layer.
- Menu/Filter/Distort/Displace: Horizontal and Vertical controls set to 4.
- Press OK and load in the Displacement Map created in step 1.
Blending
- Layer styles: Blend if section.
- Underlying layer.
- Pull shadows slider to right; pull highlight slider to left.
- Hold down Option (Mac) or Alt (Windows) to split slider for better results.
- 00:04 Hey everyone Howard Pinksy here with a very vandalizing Photoshop tutorial.
- 00:08 In this tutorial, we're gonna be creating graffiti in Photoshop.
- 00:11 Now I'm not gonna be focusing to much on creating the text of
- 00:14 the graffiti because honestly,
- 00:16 you can go to a font website, download some graffiti fonts and there you have it.
- 00:21 I will focus a little bit on the layer styles that are involved to
- 00:24 create the different outlines.
- 00:26 But mostly, I'm gonna be focusing on the blending options that
- 00:29 are available to you.
- 00:30 And I think you might find it interesting how it's being blended with the background
- 00:34 and it might give you some ideas on how you can use it in your other projects.
- 00:38 So this is the image that I'm gonna be starting with which I found over at
- 00:40 ShutterStock.com.
- 00:41 Now before I start with the text,
- 00:44 I'm gonna first be creating a displacement map.
- 00:47 Now why am I creating a displacement map?
- 00:49 Well, in short, it's gonna help later on when I want to add some texture and
- 00:53 form the text to the background that we're gonna be using.
- 00:57 And in order to create a displacement map, we need to create a black and
- 01:00 white, high contrast image.
- 01:02 So the first thing that you want to do is convert this image to black and white.
- 01:05 And it doesn't have to be anything special.
- 01:07 So with your Cmd or Ctrl+Shift and press the U key on your keyboard.
- 01:11 That'll completely desaturate your image,
- 01:13 leaving you with a pretty boring black and white image.
- 01:16 And now we need to really boost the contrast of this image.
- 01:19 Of course there are a lot of ways you can boost the contrast of your image.
- 01:23 But I found that using levels to boost the shadows and
- 01:25 the highlights will do the trick.
- 01:27 Once you're in your Levels dialogue box,
- 01:29 which you can find either under the Image Adjustments menu,
- 01:31 you can press Cmd or Ctrl+L, or add it as an adjustment layer.
- 01:36 What you wanna do is drag the shadow slider to the right and then
- 01:39 the highlights slider to the left, that'll really boost the contrast of this image,
- 01:43 which is gonna work great as a displacement map.
- 01:46 So at this point, we need to save this image.
- 01:48 Now you don't wanna save it as a JPEG, you don't don't wanna save it as a PNG file,
- 01:52 you actually need to save it as a PSD file, which is a standard Photoshop file.
- 01:57 It's very important that you save it as a PSD file or
- 02:00 else you won't be able to select it when you go to select a displacement map.
- 02:04 So just like you would save any other file, head up to the File menu,
- 02:07 down to Save and then save it somewhere you're gonna remember, and
- 02:10 make sure it's a PSD file or as it says on the bottom, Photoshop.
- 02:15 Perfect, so now that our displacement map is saved we're gonna move on to the text.
- 02:19 But to make sure that we don't ruin the displacement map,
- 02:21 we're actually gonna close the file that we just saved and
- 02:24 we're gonna open up the original image that we started with.
- 02:27 Now, as for the font, you can use any font that you wish.
- 02:29 It doesn't have to be fancy.
- 02:31 It can be graffiti style, it can be a regular Helvetica.
- 02:34 I don't care.
- 02:35 But to get that graffiti feel to your design,
- 02:38 it is recommended that you use a graffiti style font.
- 02:41 Now over at dafont.com that's D-A-F-O-N-T.com, there's
- 02:45 a great font called Zit Graffiti and if you go to my website iceflowstudios.com,
- 02:50 I will include a link to that font in the written article.
- 02:54 Now the neat thing about this font is that when you type in lower case letters,
- 02:58 the letters are filled in,
- 02:59 and when you type in upper case letters, you get just an outline.
- 03:03 But for this example, I think I want my text all filled in.
- 03:05 So I'm gonna go ahead and type my name all in lower case letters.
- 03:09 And now comes the layer styles.
- 03:10 Graffiti isn't only one color.
- 03:12 It contains gradients, shadows and borders.
- 03:15 So, hopping into the Layer Style's dialogue box, let's go ahead and
- 03:18 first add a Gradient Overlay.
- 03:20 This is gonna be a very simple gradient.
- 03:22 It's gonna be a two-color gradient.
- 03:23 And if I click on my Gradient bar right here to bring up the Gradient Editor,
- 03:26 I can start editing my gradient.
- 03:28 The color on the left is gonna be a very simple,
- 03:30 dark blue, and then the color on the right is gonna be a nice lighter blue.
- 03:35 Now the next thing that we're gonna add will be a white outline around our text,
- 03:39 and to do that we're gonna add a stroke.
- 03:41 It's gonna be super simple, I'm gonna set the size to around nine pixels, and
- 03:45 then I am gonna set the color to white.
- 03:48 Of course if you're using a larger or smaller font, you may want to increase or
- 03:52 decrease the size of your stroke.
- 03:54 Good. The next layer style we're gonna add will
- 03:56 be an inner shadow which is gonna go on the inside of the text.
- 04:00 I'm gonna change the Blend Mode to Normal and then increase the Opacity to 100%,
- 04:04 so there's no blending going on.
- 04:06 We'll deal with that later.
- 04:07 Then I'm gonna set the color to probably a dark blue.
- 04:11 I'm gonna turn off Global Light and set the angle at 90 degrees.
- 04:14 I'm gonna set the Distance at 30, and them make sure that the Choke and
- 04:18 the Size are at 0.
- 04:19 We're gonna keep this nice and sharp for now.
- 04:21 Of course, if you want something a little bit more blurry,
- 04:24 you can increase the size to your liking.
- 04:26 And finally, the last layer style we're gonna be adding will be an Outer Glow.
- 04:30 Once again I'm gonna change the Blend Mode to Normal with the Opacity at 100%.
- 04:34 Now for the color on this one,
- 04:35 I'm gonna choose a nice neon green, somewhere around here.
- 04:39 Now down below, I am gonna set the Technique to Precise,
- 04:42 this will give me a nice sharp edge to my outer glow, and
- 04:45 I'm gonna make sure to increase the Spread to 100%.
- 04:49 This will also help giving me nice sharp edges.
- 04:51 So I don't have these soft edges that look kind of unnatural.
- 04:54 And last, I'm gonna increase the size until I can see it around my
- 04:57 other layer styles.
- 04:59 Perfect. And that will do it for the layer styles.
- 05:01 Now one more reminder.
- 05:02 If you are using a larger or smaller font, you may have to adjust the layer styles so
- 05:07 you're able to see all the different strokes and outlines.
- 05:09 Now that the text is in place and the colors are set,
- 05:13 it's time to make good at that displacement map that we created earlier.
- 05:17 We're going to be using the Displace filter,
- 05:18 which can be found under the Filter > Distort menu.
- 05:21 But before you go ahead and
- 05:22 add any filters, it's always a good idea to convert your layer into a Smart Object.
- 05:27 This will allow you to edit your text and layer styles later on if you need to.
- 05:31 To convert a layer into a Smart Object, you can either right-click on it in
- 05:35 the Layers panel and choose Convert to Smart Objects or,
- 05:38 under the Filter menu you can use the Convert for Smart Filters option.
- 05:41 So, now that the layer has been converted to a Smart Object,
- 05:44 back under the Filter > Distort menu, you're gonna find the Displace option.
- 05:48 When this window appears, the Horizontal and
- 05:51 Vertical Scale Value will control how effective the displacement is.
- 05:55 The higher the value, the more distortion will be applied to your layer.
- 05:59 Now we're not looking for anything too drastic, so I'm gonna go
- 06:02 with around four for the values in both the horizontal and vertical scale.
- 06:06 Now once I press OK, we're gonna have to locate that PSD file that you
- 06:10 saved earlier, so make sure it's in a location that you remember where it is.
- 06:15 So I am gonna select that file and press Open and
- 06:17 it is gonna apply that displacement to my layer and
- 06:19 it's gonna give the impression that it's part of the wall.
- 06:22 You can hopefully see in the video that it has distorted the text to
- 06:25 kind of fit in between the grooves of the wall, but
- 06:28 without any blending, it really doesn't do it justice, so let's move on to
- 06:32 the blending part of this tutorial, which is really gonna bring this effect home.
- 06:35 There's a few ways this can be done,
- 06:37 including experimenting with the different blend modes.
- 06:39 But what I'm gonna show you is a slightly different way of blending.
- 06:42 Let's go ahead and hop into your Layer Styles dialogue box which you can
- 06:45 either get to by double-clicking on the layer in the Layers panel, or
- 06:49 under the Layer > Layer Style Blending Options section.
- 06:52 Now, like I mentioned there's a few ways to blend a layer with a layer behind it.
- 06:56 Most people would go right for the Blend Modes.
- 06:59 You can use Blend Modes such as Multiply or Overlay, Soft Light,
- 07:04 Linear Light, so on and so forth and they'll all give you very nice results.
- 07:08 But the problem that I have with Blend Modes in this situation is that I
- 07:11 chose my colors very specifically, and I don't want those colors to be lost.
- 07:15 When you're using blend modes,
- 07:16 the colors are usually altered to blend with the layer behind it.
- 07:20 I don't want that.
- 07:21 So, down below there's a Blend If section.
- 07:23 A lot of people don't know exactly what Blend If does and how it works.
- 07:28 Basically, Blend If contains two bars.
- 07:30 One for the current layer, which in this case is the Text Layer, and one for
- 07:34 the layer underneath it which is our Background Layer.
- 07:37 Both contain a Shadows and a Highlights slider which allows you to blend
- 07:40 the shadows and the highlights from the current layer and or the layer underneath.
- 07:45 In this case, we wanna blend the shadows and
- 07:47 the highlights from the brick wall, which is the underlying layer with the text.
- 07:52 So on the Underlying Layer bar, pulling the Shadow slider to the right and
- 07:57 the Highlight slider to the left, we'll blend the current layer with
- 08:00 the layer underneath, in this case the brick wall.
- 08:04 Now simply pulling on the sliders will typically give you very harsh results.
- 08:08 Of course, if this is what you are looking for, then great.
- 08:11 However, if you are looking for more of a blend the sliders can actually be split.
- 08:16 Holding down your Option key on the Mac, Alt key on Windows will allow you to
- 08:20 split each slider resulting in a much cleaner blend.
- 08:24 So hopefully you can see now the advantage of using Blend If versus the Blend Modes.
- 08:29 Our colors end up more true to what we started with, whereas changing
- 08:33 the Blend Modes tends to alter the color of the layer in order to blend them in.
- 08:37 Of course, experiment around and see which method you prefer.
- 08:40 And that'll do it for this effect.
- 08:41 Of course, now that you know how to blend the layer with the background layer,
- 08:45 the sky is the limit.
- 08:47 You can stick with text, grab your logos or
- 08:49 make some wacky designs to digitally vandalize your photos in Photoshop.
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