Iron Man Text Effect

Quick reference

• 00:05 So, today we're going to be making an Iron Man inspired text effect in
• 00:08 Photoshop. Let's get started.
• 00:09 Starting off with the size of my document, I usually start around
• 00:13 1280 by 720,
• 00:15 but as I might want to use this design for a wallpaper in the future,
• 00:19 I'm going to start big this time - I'm going to go for 1920 by 1080, full HD for this design.
• 00:23 Of course, you can start it any size that you like, but
• 00:28 keep in mind if you choose to start at a smaller size,
• 00:31 you may have to adjust the layer styles as we're going through this video.
• 00:34 Good. So now that the document is ready to go, you can either fill the background
• 00:39 with completely black,
• 00:40 or we can use a dark texture. I'm going to go ahead and grab this texture here,
• 00:44 which I found over at Shutterstock.com,
• 00:46 and simply reduce the opacity to around 30%, and change the blend mode to
• 00:50 hard light.
• 00:51 That will give it a really nice effect against the black background. If you
• 00:55 don't have a subscription to Shutterstock,
• 00:57 you can always go to websites like CGtextures.com. They have a nice
• 01:00 selection of free textures that you can use.
• 01:02 OK, so now that the background is in place, let's move on to the text.
• 01:22 Of course, you can use any font that you wish, but a nice
• 01:25 thick font usually works best for these types of designs. Now, there are going to be
• 01:30 two text layers that make up this design. One for the foreground and one which
• 01:34 will give the text a little bit of depth.
• 01:36 Both will be the exact same size and shape. Because I'm working with a really
• 01:40 large document, I also want to work with the really large font.
• 01:44 So I'll use around 235, and I'm going to type out my word of choice right in the
• 01:49 center of the document.
• 01:50 To make things simple, I'll use 'Iron Man'. Now, as for the color of
• 01:55 the text, which you could set either before or after you typed it out,
• 01:58 I'm going to be using a very dark red: the values are going to be 25 11 03.
• 02:02 This will actually act as the background text, the text that will give
• 02:08 the text some
• 02:08 depth, but we'll get to that in a moment. So now that we have our first type layer
• 02:12 created,
• 02:13 you're going to want to perform a simple duplication - this will leave you with
• 02:17 two identical layers right on top of each other. You can easily do this with
• 02:21 the Command or Control
• 02:22 G shortcut - Command on the Mac, Control on Windows.
• 02:26 Good, and as you can see on your layers panel on the right, we have two of the
• 02:29 exact same layers.
• 02:31 And for the top layer, we now want to go in and add some layer styles. You can easily
• 02:35 do that by
• 02:36 double clicking on the layer to bring up the layer styles dialogue box.
• 02:39 We're going to start with a gradient overlay. Once you're in the gradient overlay
• 02:43 section, we're not going to worry about any of the settings right here,
• 02:46 we're going to click on the gradient bar to bring up the gradient editor,
• 02:49 so we can edit the colors. Now, the color on the left is going to be a little bit
• 02:53 lighter red -
• 02:54 I'll use the value 54 13 13.
• 02:57 Now, the color on the right will be quite a bit darker -
• 03:01 the value I'll use is 26 04 04
• 03:05 Perfect, now that the gradient is finished, we're going to hop into the bevel
• 03:11 and emboss section.
• 03:12 This will give us a nice outline around our text. We're going to keep the style at
• 03:16 inner bevel, but I'll change the technique to ‘chisel hard’.
• 03:20 I'll set the depth at 300, keep the direction at up
• 03:24 and increase the size to 13. Now, again, I will mention that if you're using a
• 03:29 larger or smaller font,
• 03:30 you will have to tweak the settings to get the result that you are looking for.
• 03:34 Now, down below under shading, I'll keep the angle at 120,
• 03:38 but I'll increase the altitude to around fifty degrees,
• 03:41 and I also want to turn on anti-alias, as this will ensure that the
• 03:45 edges over the text are nice and smooth, and not sharp.
• 03:48 Finally, we're going to make some changes to the highlight and shadow mode.
• 03:51 We are going to switch it up a little bit. For the highlight mode, I'm going to set the
• 03:55 blend mode at color burn,
• 03:56 and set the color to a dark brown. The value is going to be 51 33 1d.
• 04:01 The opacity can stay at 75%.
• 04:06 Now, for the shadow mode, I'll set the blend mode at screen,
• 04:09 and use a nice peach color: FF CB 87.
• 04:16 Perfect. The last thing we're going to add is a contour to our bevel.
• 04:20 Right on the left hand side, we can add a contour, and when we click on the contour picker
• 04:24 I'll add the rounded steps contour. And based on your personal preference, you
• 04:29 can decrease the range if necessary.
• 04:31 I'm going to bump it down to around 35%. Perfect. So those layer styles gave it a
• 04:35 really nice border around our text, but there is still a little bit to work to be
• 04:38 done.
• 04:39 Let's go ahead and hop down a layer to our original type layer.
• 04:43 This one's going to be simple. First off, it needs to be revealed.
• 04:46 Right now, it’s hiding behind the top layer that we just worked on.
• 04:49 If you still have the top layer selected, simply move upwards until the bottom
• 04:53 layer is poking out from the bottom.
• 04:54 If the bottom layer selected just move it down.
• 04:58 And depending on the color the background, it may be a little bit difficult to see this,
• 05:01 text,
• 05:02 so you either can change the color of the text, or add a drop shadow.
• 05:06 Let's go ahead and add a drop shadow. I'll double click on that layer to open up
• 05:09 the layer styles dialogue box,
• 05:11 and select the drop shadow option. In here, I'll keep the blend mode to
• 05:15 multiply,
• 05:15 but I'll increase the opacity all the way up to 100%.
• 05:19 Set the angle at 90 degrees, set the distance at five
• 05:24 and increase the size to around 20. That will give you a nice drop shadow that
• 05:28 pulls our design away from the background just a little bit.
• 05:32 Good. So now that we have the text completed, let's move on to the textures,
• 05:35 to really bring this design home.
• 05:37 For a design like this, scratched metal texture is going to work great.
• 05:41 Again, I'll be using a texture I found on Shutterstock.com.
• 05:45 Now, when you have your texture opened in Photoshop, you can simply drag it up to
• 05:49 the tab at the top,
• 05:50 hold it there for a second and then drop it right on top of your document.
• 05:53 And if you have to, you can always resize it to fit over the text.
• 05:57 So now the texture is in place, we need to create a layer mask
• 06:01 to hide everything outside the text. In the layers panel, hold down the Command key
• 06:05 on the Mac,
• 06:06 Control key in Windows, and click on the top type layer's
• 06:09 thumbnail. This will turn that top type layer into a selection.
• 06:13 And then, once the selection has been made, click on the ‘add layer mask’ icon at the
• 06:17 bottom of the layers panel,
• 06:19 to hide everything outside of that selection. Good, now obviously we're not
• 06:22 going to keep it like this - we need to blend it with the text a little bit.
• 06:26 To do this, you can change the blend mode of that text earlier to soft light,
• 06:30 and then decrease the opacity as needed. I'm going to set it around 60%.
• 06:34 Now, for texture that is lighter or darker, you may want to experiment with the other
• 06:38 blend modes that are available,
• 06:39 to get the best blend. Good. That's looking a lot better.
• 06:43 Let's go ahead and add a few finishing touches to really finalize this design.
• 06:47 I’ll start with a single spotlight at the top of this design.
• 06:51 As you don't want to mess up your texture layer, and you can't brush in a
• 06:53 type layer,
• 06:54 you want to make sure to create a new layer in the layers panel specifically
• 06:57 for this light.
• 06:59 Now, once a new lawyer has been created, go ahead and grab your brush tool with
• 07:02 the B key on your keyboard
• 07:04 and make sure your color is set to white. Once that's done,
• 07:08 right-click anywhere in the document to bring up the brush picker, and make sure
• 07:11 you have a very soft,
• 07:13 large brush. Anytime you want to increase the size of that brush without
• 07:17 bringing up the brush picker,
• 07:18 you can always use the right square bracket key on your keyboard.
• 07:21 Once you have a nice size brush, simply click once on your document to
• 07:25 create that light.
• 07:27 Now to finish it off, back in your layers panel, change the blend modes to
• 07:30 either soft light or overlay.
• 07:31 Good. We're going to add one more element to finish off this design.
• 07:35 We're going to add a shine on top of the text. Back in the layers panel, go ahead and
• 07:40 create another new layer, right on top of your text layer,
• 07:43 and then turn that type layer into a selection - just like you did before:
• 07:46 Command or Control and click on the type layer's thumbnail.
• 07:50 Now, once that selection has been made, you want to fill it with white.
• 07:53 A quick way to do this is to press the D key on your keyboard to set your default
• 07:57 colors:
• 07:57 black will be the foreground color and white will be the background color.
• 08:01 And then, you can use Command-Delete on the Mac, or Control-Backspace on Windows,
• 08:05 to fill your selection with the background color, which happens to be
• 08:08 white.
• 08:09 And then once that's done, Command or Control 'D' will deselect your selection.
• 08:14 Now, you need to decide which part of the shine layer you want visible.
• 08:17 With your selection method of choice active, in this case I need the polygonal
• 08:21 lasso tool,
• 08:22 you want to box out what you want to keep. I'll select the diagonal area at the
• 08:26 top portion of my text.
• 08:29 And when that selection is complete, go ahead and click the ‘add layer mask’ icon
• 08:32 in your layers panel
• 08:33 to hide the area outside the selection.
• 08:36 Good, now if you want the shine to fade off towards the left or the right,
• 08:40 you can use a ‘black to transparent’ gradient on the layer mask to do so.
• 08:44 Go and grab your gradient tool from the Tools bar on the left,
• 08:48 and then at the top choose the 'foreground to transparent' gradient.
• 08:52 Then drag on the gradient from the end that you want the shine to be transparent
• 08:55 to the end you want visible. Now, if you find yourself in a situation where black
• 09:00 covers the whole entire document,
• 09:02 make sure that the layer mask a selected in your layers panel.
• 09:05 And finally, once your layer mask has been finalized, go ahead and set the
• 09:08 blend mode of that layer to soft light
• 09:11 and decrease the opacity as needed. And that should do it: your
• 09:15 own Iron Man text in Photoshop.

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