Transformed Text - Photoshop Tutorial

This text effect is a result of playing with Photoshop’s Transform feature. The main text is a silver-coloured metal effect, and the tranformations are glowing and spectacular. It is an easy effect to achieve, however, it has turned out to be relatively difficult to explain! If you come across any problems, glitches or things that make you say ‘What?!’ then please don’t hesitate to either contact me (right sidebar) or leave a comment below – I will try my best to make things clearer if necessary. Other than that, I hope you enjoy producing this effect as much as I did!

Click on the image for full size view

Resources:

You will need to download and install the following font and gradient set to complete this tutorial:

Asenine Font from dafont.com NOTE: You only need to install the Asenine Thin file

Sabor’s Metal Gradients from deviantart.com

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Step 1

Open a new file using the following settings:

Step 2

Select the Type tool and Asenine Thin font, size 200pt, foreground colour black

Type the word you require

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

Make the background layer active

Select>All

Make the text layer active

Select the Move tool

Click the Horizontal and Vertical Centre alignment icons at the top of the screen:

Step 3

Duplicate the layer twice

Rename the layers – the names and order they should be in palette is shown below:

Step 4

Make the toptext layer active

Ctrl + T to transform the object

*Right click within the transform box and click on Perspective

Place your cursor over one of the top corner handles and push the top of the text in – aim for about 63° on the H scale at the top of the screen:

Right click within the transform box and click on Free Transform

Place your cursor over the top centre handle and drag the text up – it should reach it’s smallest point then widen out again – you need the top to be about the same width as the original text:

Hit the Enter key to accept the transformation

Step 5

Make the bottomtext layer active

Ctrl + T to transform the object

Right click within the transform box and click on Flip Vertical

Right click within the transform box and click on Flip Horizontal

Repeat Step 4 from *

Step 6

Turn off the visibility of the text and toptext layers

Make the bottomtext layer active

Create a new layer (should be above the bottomtext layer)

Select the Line tool, set to 3px width, foreground colour black

Where the letters have stayed intact, you need to create a line to correct that as shown below:

Create a new layer for each line you have to draw

When you have drawn the lines, make the bottomtext layer active and using the Eraser tool, erase the parts of the letters not required.

Now you can move, rotate and otherwise adjust each line to fit nicely to the existing lines

When everything is aligned, select all the line layers and the bottomtext layer by holding down the Shift key and clicking on each layer

Right click on the selection in the layers palette and click on Merge Layers

Make sure the layer is still called bottomtext

Select the Rectangular Marquee tool and make a selection that includes the lines you drew that are longer than they should be

Hit the delete key

Your bottomtext should now look like this:

Step 7

Repeat step 5 for the toptext layer

Restore visibility to all layers

Step 8

Make the text layer active

Double click on the layer in the layers palette to bring up the blending options and apply the following Gradient Overlay, Drop Shadow, Bevel & Emboss and Stroke settings:

Step 9

Make the toptext layer active

Double click on the layer in the layers palette to bring up the blending options and apply the following Drop Shadow, Outer Glow, Bevel & Emboss, Color Overlay and Gradient Overlay settings:

Step 10

Copy and paste the layer style from the toptext layer to the bottomtext layer

Double click on the bottomtext layer in the layers palette to bring up the blending options

On the Gradient Overlay screen, check Reverse, as shown below:

Step 11

With the bottomtext layer still active

Filter>Blur>Gaussian Blur – set the radius to 2, click OK

Apply the same blur to the toptext layer

Step 12

Fill the background layer with blue #17429A

Create a new layer above the background

Drag out a horizontal guide and place it where the top transformed text crosses itself, ie: the narrowest part

Select the Rectangular Marquee tool

Drag out a rectangular selection from the top of the canvas to the guide, the complete width of the canvas:

Set the foreground colour to very dark blue #081B43

Select the Fill Bucket and fill the selection

Ctrl + D to deselect

Step 13

Drag the guide down to the narrowest part of the bottom text

Create a rectangular selection from the bottom of the canvas to the guide, full width of the canvas

Fill with the same very dark blue

Step 14

Create a new layer above the background layer

Select the Brush tool and a round, soft brush – set the size to around 500px

Foreground colour set to very dark blue #081B43

Place the brush in the centre of the canvas and click once

Click on the image for full size view

I hope you enjoyed this tutorial. The Transform tool in Photoshop is very useful and can produce some weird, wonderful, interesting and delightful effects, apart from just what it appears to do at first glance. Most of Photoshop’s tools and filters can produce much more than it would first appear – the thing to do, most definitely, is play, play then play some more!

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