Step 1
Open up Illustrator, and with the Type Tool type a
letter or text, I typed the letter “C” I used the font Adobe Caslon
Pro,you can use any font that you like, just make sure that it is a bit
thick font to yield better results. I set the font size to 400 pt &
scaled it horizontally & vertically to 150% through the Character
Palette, though don't worry about the font size too much because we'll
be pasting it as Smart Objects in Photoshop so we can adjust the size at
any given time. The color I used for the letter is #8CC63F.
Step 2
Now
go to Effect>3D>Extrude & Bevel, make sure that Previewis on.
Use the settings shown below, apart from specifying rotations for x, y
& z axis, I chose Tall-Round from the Bevel drop down list. The
settings will more or less depend on the font, so if you have used a
different font play a bit, though I will advise to stay away from the
fancier Bevel settings, mostly None setting works best. You can also
make it more thick by increasing the Extrude Depth.
Step 3
After
you’re happy with your 3D effect, it will be time to move on over to
Photoshop. Open a new document in Photoshop. Now, copy your 3D
text/letter from Illustrator & paste it as Smart Object in
Photoshop, press Enter key or checkmark to commit. You can now resize
your text to whatever size you want, in fact, bigger the better, but for
the purposes of this tutorial, I will stick to a small canvas.
Power
Tip: If for any reason, you want to edit the pasted 3D Smart Object,
just double click on the Vector Smart Object thumbnail in the Layer
Palette, press OK on the resulting window, the Smart Object will
automatically open up in Illustrator, do the changes or editing you
want, then go to File>Save & close the file & tadaa the
changes will reflect in your Photoshop file.
Step 4
Now,
lets begin with the Photoshop magic, we will be adding various texture
on the different layers & will spice them up with the variety of
blending modes, the key is to experiment & choose the settings that
will best suit your purpose.
Open the texture image that you would like to use, for the first layer I used a texture, lets call it Texture 1 from a texture pack
on deviantArt. Go to Select>All & then Edit>Copy to copy the
entire texture image, Now we are going to paste this image into our
letter, but you have to tell Photoshop where to paste it. So return to
your 3D text document & pressing down Ctrl/Cmd Click on Vector Smart
Object thumbnail, this will select the entire text/letter, in our case,
the letter “C”, now go to Edit>Paste Into (Shift+Ctrl/Cmd+V) to
paste the texture image on “C”. Change the blending mode of the texture
layer to Overlay.
Now, your image & layer palette should look like so:
Look
at your layers palette now. You see your texture image there and a mask
has been made that allows only the letter part of the image to show.
If
you’re using different images, play around a bit with blending modes,
mostly Overlay, Soft Light, Hard light, Multiply will give the desired
results.
Step 5
Repeat the procedure prescribed in Step 4, but with a different texture. I used one of the texture from this pack.
In
brief, open the texture image, Select All (Ctrl/Cmd+A), Copy it
(Ctrl/Cmd+C) & return to your original document, pressing down
Ctrl/Cmd Click on Vector Smart Object thumbnail to select the
letter/text & go to Edit>Paste Into (Shift+Ctrl/Cmd+V) to paste
the texture in the letter “C”. And, change the blending mode to
Multiply.
Step 6
Now,
its again time to do the same thing as mentioned in Step 4 & 5, but
with the different texture image. This time I used a more colorful
texture from a another texture pack over at deviantArt. And, this time I choose the blending mode to Soft Light.
This is how my image & Layer Palette looks like after step 6.
Power
Tip: If you need to edit the filler texture image or if you don't like
how it looks within the letter, you can still change it! Just choose the
Move Tool (V) & drag over with your texture layer selected. Also,
if you need to resize the texture image select Edit>Transform to
resize it.
Step 7
Now, select the Background
layer & fill with a Gradient Tool (G). I used Linear Gradient &
the colors for the two stops are as prescribed in the screenshot. Drag
the gradient tool diagonally from bottom to top.
Step 8
Pressing down Shift key select all the layers in the
Layer Palette except the background layer & Link all of them. Also
make sure to link the Layer Mask thumbnails with their corresponding
layer thumbnails by clicking once between them.
Step 9
Now, we will do the reflection of our letter “C”. For that, select all the linked layers & duplicate them.
Step10
Merge all the duplicated layers & name it Reflection.
Step 11
On
the Reflection layer, go to Edit>Transform>Flip Vertical &
place it beneath the letter “C”. Adjust its perspective if the need be.
Step 12
The
next step is to add a layer mask to the duplicate layer. To do this
simply click on the add layer mask button in the layers palette.
Now pick the Gradient Tool (G) and draw a gradient (black to white) in the direction from bottom to mid top.
Finally
just reduce the opacity of the duplicate layer and you are all done. I
reduced the opacity to 20% , there is no golden rule about the opacity %
, just play with the opacity setting & choose the one that suits
your image.
Step 13
Finally, with the Type Tool, I wrote the words “for creativity” with the settings as shown in the Character Palette.
The font used is Larissa & can be downloaded from here. I also rotated the words a bit via Edit>Transform.
Then I applied the layer style, as shown in the screenshots below.
Step 14
To add a bit of finishing touch, I added Outer Glow to the Vector Smart Object layer, as shown.
And, that’s how my Layers palette in end & final image looks like.
Here, is a another example of image, I made with the same technique.
To
take it further, play & experiment with various textures, the
blending modes, also changing the various Adjustments options like
Invert, Posterize, Hue/Saturations settings etc. gives the different
results. You can also make the text look grungy or rusty using grunge
textures, its just the matter of exploring the powers of Photoshop &
tapping your creativity!
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