Graphics Zone - Enhancing Text

XRATED BUCKS

BONEFISH

Enhancing Text using Patterns in Photoshop

by BarryHilton, Adult NetSurprise

In this tutorial we'll be designing a pattern to use as a text effect, while still keeping the text editable! Start by opening up a new graphic...Click Here to view Screen Shot with Instructions.

We're going to design our pattern first. Start off by creating a new layer for our pattern design, keeping the white background layer for later. We'll want to make a gradient fill for our pattern background, we need to set the colors for our gradient first. Start by setting the foreground color... Click Here to view Screen Shot with Instructions.

Continue setting ou our gradient fill by selecting the background color we'll be using... Click Here to view Screen Shot with Instructions. NOTE: When you're designing your own gradient fills, if you want a sililar tone of background color, click on the background color box to bring up the Color Picker, then click on the foreground color box to give you your base color. Then you can select a shade of your original foreground color!

Fill the new layer with your foreground to background gradient and lable your new layer 'pattern'... Click Here to view Screen Shot with Instructions.

Now start adding interest to your pattern! In this tutorial we're going to add a Noise filter to give a speckled effect to our pattern... Click Here to view Screen Shot with Instructions. When you're designing your own patterns, they don't need to be a repeating pattern as long as the pattern you're designing is bigger than the text you want to apply it to.

To add a little more interest we're going to add one of Photoshop's Effects, a Satin look! Click Here to view Screen Shot with Instructions. By selecting a different Gradient for the Satin effect we get very different results, experiment with different Gradients to see the difference.

To make the Effect work as our pattern we need to combine the Effect and the pattern layer. To do this we need to separate the Effect into a different layer... Click Here to view Screen Shot with Instructions. This is very useful for a variety of looks and allows Photoshop's Effects to be positioned differently or be overlapped by other layers.

Next, we need to merge our pattern layer and the newly created Effect layer together into a single layer. Start by linking the two layer together then combining them into one layer... Click Here to view Screen Shot with Instructions.

Select All, then define our image as a Pattern... Click Here to view Screen Shot with Instructions.

Now, we're going to add our text! Make the pattern layer transparent by clicking the 'eye' next to it's layer name, Then select the Text tool, enter the attributes, then type your text! Click Here to view Screen Shot with Instructions.

Finally, add our Pattern to the text as a Pattern Overlay... Click Here to view Screen Shot with Instructions. The Pattern that we created earlier will be placed at the bottom of the Pattern's menu and can be saved/exported so if you have to reinstall Photoshop you can also add back in all the Patterns you designed.

Here's our completed text with our Pattern... Click Here to view Sample.

Experiment and have fun!