Melting Text Effect - Photoshop tutorial

Create this melting text effect using a couple of free fonts and Photoshop’s built-in tools. This is not a difficult tutorial, and beginners should be able to complete it.

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Resources:

Frazzle font from dafont.com

Cold Night for Alligators font from dafont.com

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Step 1

Open a new file, 1000 x 800px, 72ppi resolution, white background

Select the Type tool and Frazzle font, size 150pt, foreground colour black

Apply the following type settings:

Type your required text all on one layer

Right click on the layer in the layers palette and click Rasterize Type

Rename this layer ‘frazzle’

Step 2

Select the Type tool and Cold Night for Alligators font, size 250pt, foreground colour black

Make the background layer active so your next Type layer will be above it and below the frazzle layer

Type each letter on a separate layer and line the letters up with the frazzle layer letters

When you have all the letters placed as required, turn off the visibility of the background layer and frazzle layer

Right click on any visible layer and click Rasterize Type

Right click on the layer again and click Merge Visible

Restore visibility to all layers

Step 3

Select the Type tool with the same settings as in step 2

Type the number 9

Right click on the layer in the layers palette and click Raterize Type

Erase the number, just leaving the drips and splatter

Place it beneath one of your letters

Do the same with the capital letter E

Duplicate the layers to add more drips and pools/splatters below the letters as required:

Turn off the visibility of the background layer and frazzle layer

Right click on any visible layer and click Merge Visible

Rename this layer ‘drips’

Step 4

Reduce the opacity of the drips layer so the text looks grey and you can clearly see the frazzle layer

Select the Eraser tool, small, hard, round brush

Erase the parts of the drips layer that are above the text of the frazzle layer

Restore the layer opacity to 100%

Step 5

Apply a layer mask to the frazzle layer by clicking the icon at the bottom of the layers palette

With black as your foreground colour, mask out dips in the tops of the letters where they would be melted away

Apply a layer mask to the drips layer and mask out a little more than you did with the frazzle layer:

Step 6

Double click on the frazzle layer in the layers palette to bring up the blending options and apply the following Color Overlay, Bevel & Emboss and Satin settings:

Copy and paste the layer style to the drips layer

Step 7

Create a new, empty layer above the drips layer, hold down the shift key and click on the drips layer so both are selected, right click and click on Merge Layers – rename the layer ‘drips’ if necessary

Step 8

With the drips layer active

Filter>Artistic>Plastic Wrap – apply the following settings:

Step 9

Fill the background layer with black

Step 10

Double click on the drips layer to bring up the blending options and apply the following Outer Glow settings:

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