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Cool Text Effect with the Puppet Warp Tool in Photoshop CS5
When Adobe started announcing some of the new features of the CS5 version of Photoshop they showed the Puppet Warp tool in which they played with an elephant's trunk. I was really impressed with that tool but never used it that too much, because of that I decided to give it a try, especially after seeing a screen cast with Russell Brown in which he was showing how to manipulate a rope with the Puppet Warp Tool. So in this tutorial I will show you how to create a text effect using a photo of a rope and the Puppet Warp tool. This tutorial will only work with the CS5 version and I believe it won't take you too much time. Step 1 Open Photoshop and create a new document. I'm using 2560x1440 pixels for the size. After that import a photo of a rope. The one I used is courtesy of Shutterstock and you can find it here. Step 2 We will be using the Puppet Warp tool to create our text effect, but to make it work properly the rope has to be really long. You will also have to extract the background of the layer, leaving just the rope. After that go to Edit>Puppet Warp. The default mode will show a mash over your object, to hide it just deselect the Show Mesh option. Step 3 Now start adding points or joints, I don't even know how to call those things. As you can see in the image below, I added one at the beginning of the rope and one at the end. Start moving them around to see how they behave. Tips, if you hold ALT you can rotate the point, a little circle will show so you can use it as a controller. Also if you click on the point holding ALT you will delete it. Step 4 Start creating your word, below you can see the R of rope. Step 5 Keep editing, it takes quite some time to get used to how things work, it's important to not stretch the rope too much otherwise it will distort the image. Step 6 Another really cool feature with the Puppet Wart is that you can change the order of the mesh in terms of depth, it's quite impressive how they do that but for example you can define with part goes on over the other using the Pin Depth icons. Step 7 After a few minutes moving the points I got a quite convincing result for the word ROPE. Step 8 Import the rope image again and connect it with the R, then do the same with the E. Step 9 Add a new layer on top of the others and with the Brush Tool (B) use a very soft brush with black, paint the areas marked below to create some shadows. Group this layer into a folder and change the Blend Mode of the folder to Color Burn at 50% Opacity. Step 10 Group all layers and duplicate the group, then with the duplicated group selected go to Layer>Merge Group. Change the Blend Mode of the group to Overlay. Step 11 Using the rope image again, create another effect using the Puppet Warp tool. Step 12 Import a paper texture and place on top of the other layers. The one I used is from Shutterstock and can be found here. Select all layers but the paper texture, then group them. After that duplicate the group, select this new group and go to Filter>Convert for Smart Filters. Step 13 With the Smart Object layer selected go to Filter>Blur>Guassian Blur. Use 8 pixels for the Radius. One cool thing about Smart Filters is that they behave like masks, there is a white thumbnail next to the Smart Filter sub layer that is like a mask, everything that is white gets the filter, what is black doesn't and the grey scales areas the filter is less strong. This is perfect to create a sort of depth of field effect. With the Brush Tool (B) and a very soft brush, paint of the ROPE word area with black and also the whole rope that connects the word. Use the image below for reference. Step 14 Select all layers and duplicate them, after that merge the duplicated layers and go to Filter>Blur>Gaussian Blur. Use 15 pixels for the radius. Duplicate this layer, so you will have 2 blurry layers. The one at the top use Screen for the Blend Mode at 50% Opacity and the one beneath use Overlay for the Blend Mode with 50% of Opacity as well. Step 15 Go to Layer>New Adjustments Layer>Hue and Saturation. Reduce the Saturation to -40. Conclusion The Puppet Warp tool is an incredible tool which shows an incredible technology behind it, like there are some things that are quite mind blowing such as the changing depths of the mesh. This tutorial was just an example of how to use it to create a text made out of rope. Now it's up to you to come up with much cooler ideas. Click on the image for full preview. Download the Photoshop File Click here to download the Photoshop file used for this tutorial.
3D Water Text Effect with Repoussé in Photoshop CS5
Last year I wrote a tutorial called Incredibly Realistic Water Text in Cinema 4D and Photoshop where I created a text made out of water. I had to use Cinema 4D to create a 3D object then I imported this 3D file in Photoshop where I mixed with some stock photos. Now with Photoshop CS5 Extended and the Repoussé tool we can create 3D objects direct in Photoshop, so I decided to recreate that effect. So, in this tutorial I will show you how to create a water text. Even though it might look complex it's a very simple effect. We will be using the new Repoussé then some stock photos to create the effect. Step 1 Open Photoshop and create a new document. Fill the background layer with black and using the Brush Tool (B) or importing a vector file with a handwritten text. You can the one I used in the PSD file that you can download in the end of this tutorial. Step 2 If you create a text using the brush tool or importing a vector and paste it as bitmap, create a marquee selection of the area you want to apply Repoussé. With the selection active go to 3D> Repoussé>Current Selection. Step 3 To create the water effect we will use the Inflate preset and pretty much use the same values we used in the previous step, the Inflate 3D type. Change the Depth to 0 and the Scale to 1, also for the Inflate, change the Slides to Front and Face. Step 4 You will notice that the E will be a solid block and the hole will be lost, then select the area that you want to be hole and then change the Type to Hole. Also increase the Strength of the Inflate to 1. Step 5 Select the Front Inflation over the 3D Palette and then click on the folder next to the Bump values. Select Open Texture to open the texture in a new document. Then in this new document create a new layer and go to Filter>Render>Clouds. Make sure that you are using black and white for the colors. After that go to Filter>Render>Different Clouds. If your result is too dark, go to Image>Adjustment>Levels, then increase the white input. This texture will be the Bump map, which will distort our 3D text. For the other values, use white for the Diffuse color, 15% Opacity, 20 for the Reflection, Black for the Illumination, 100% Gloss, 100% Shine, white for the Specular and 1.5 for the Refraction. You can render here to have a preview of the 3D effect. Step 6 Now to make our effect more realistic let's mix some stock photos. The one I used is from Stock.xchng (http://www.sxc.hu/photo/884261 and http://www.sxc.hu/photo/1131843). Open these 2 images in Photoshop. Copy some parts of the water splash from the photos and paste it in our 3D image. Step 7 Repeat the process, copy and paste more splashes. As the water splashes from the photos have black background, just change the Blend Mode to Screen, so the black will be transparent. Step 8 Time to Render our 3D object. On the 3D Palette change the Quality to Ray Traced Final. It will take a few minutes to render the 3D object. If you want to change the lights you can do that and render it again until you find the best result. Step 9 Duplicate the rendered 3D object and go to Layer>Rasterize>3D. I will rasterize the 3D object so I can apply some image adjustments, I could do that with the 3D layer but some wouldn't work the way I want or it can get a bit slow. Add a new layer and fill it with black, then merge the black layer with the 3D rasterized layer. After that go to Image>Adjustments>Levels. Use 15 for the Black, 0.8 for the Grey and 160 for the White inputs. Step 10 Select all layers and duplicate them. After that go to Filter>Blur>Gaussian Blur. Use 15 for the Amount. After that change the Blend Mode to Color Dodge and the Opacity to 30%. Conclusion Last year I created this effect using Cinema 4D to create the 3D part, which was really simple as well. However now with Repoussé in Photoshop CS5 Extended we can do everything, in this case the 3D part, in Photoshop. I have been playing quite a lot with Repoussé and there are lots of new things that we can create with this new tool, this water effect is an example. I hope you enjoyed it and now it's up to you. Click on the image for full preview. Download the Photoshop File Click here to download the Photoshop file used for this tutorial.
3D Type with Repoussé in Photoshop CS5 Extended
The new Adobe Photoshop CS5 Extended is about to be released, it was announced already and among the new features there is one really special that is the Repoussé. This new feature or tool will allow us to create 3D objects extruding texts, selections, paths and layers masks. It's a really powerful tool and I had the chance to try it and now I will share with you one of my first experiments with it. In this tutorial I will recreate an image of a tutorial I did for Digital Arts Magazine last year which I used Photoshop and Illustrator to create a 3D text with a girl on top of it, the tutorial was the CREATE MILE-HIGH TYPE ART. So this time I will do everything using just Photoshop CS 5 Extended with the Repoussé. I also want to mention that I'm still learning these new features/tools and I will try to share as much as I can with you guys and if you are using the beta of Photoshop feel free to share with us as well. Repoussé is a new research system for the interactive enhancement of 2D art with 3D geometry. Repoussé creates a 3D shape by inflating the surface that interpolates the input curves. By using the mean curvature stored at boundary vertices as a degree of freedom, a user is able to manipulate the inflated surface intuitively and efficiently using a single linear system. - Adobe Step 1 Open Photoshop CS 5 Extended and type with the Horizontal Type Tool (T) type the word 3D using Impact for the font. Step 2 Go to 3D>Repoussé>Text Layer, this is the new 3D tool built-in in Photoshop CS Extended. With Repoussé we will be able to create all sorts of extrusions from text layers, selections and layer masks. In this case we will use a text layer. Once the Repoussé settings window is opened you will have quite a few settings. First you can choose from some Shape Presets, which have a basic extrusion, different kinds of bevels and other presets. For this tutorial I use the basic one but, I've changed the Extrude values to create the effect I wanted. You also have the Materials, Bevel, Scene and Inflate settings but I won't get into these right now because I'm still learning them and preparing new tutorials about them as well. For the Extrude settings I used 4.94 for the Depth and 0.30 for the Scale so the 3D seems to be coming from the ground to up in the sky with a very strong perspective. Another cool thing here is that you can rotate, scale and move the object around until you find the right position. Step 3 This is the 3D text I wanted, in the past I would have to use another software like Illustrator or a 3D app such as Cinema 4D, now I can do that in Photoshop. Step 4 To add and edit textures is pretty easy as well. As in Photoshop CS 4 we have the 3D palette where we can edit our 3D objects, you can access this palette going to Window>3D. Select the 3D object and then you will have the 3D front Inflation, 3D front Bevel, 3D extrusion... all of these are the areas where you can apply materials. Select the 3D Extrusion Material and the on Diffuse click on the folder next to the color (1) and select Open Texture. The texture will be open in a new window like when you edit a Smart Objects. So in this window you can create your material I'm using a brick texture from Shutterstock, you can find it here. So adjust your texture in terms of colors then save this file. Photoshop will automatically updates the 3D object adding the texture. If you want to make the bricks smaller just click again on the icon next to the color and select Edit Texture. A dialog box with Texture Properties will open where you can adjust the UV Scale and Offset. I used 10 for the U and V Scale. The last thing here is apply the same texture to the Bumpmap (4). Simply repeat the same thing. The bump will add depth to the texture like the displacement map where the light areas go up while the dark areas go down. Step 5 Now select the 3D Front Inflation Material and repeat the same thing we did in the previous step, this time however I'm using another texture, a concrete one which was courtesy of Shutterstock and you can find it here. Step 6 Once you changed the materials this will be the result you will have. As you can see the whole process was much easier than if you have to do that using different tools and them exporting and importing in Photoshop. Step 7 As you can see there is light as well. Yes you can add lights to make your scene more realistic. In this first part I have only one light. It's a Point Light with Intensity of 2. It also creates shadows, where I've changed to 100% of softness to make the shadows really soft. Step 8 In this step I started mixing the 3D object with 2D objects, in this case a photo I took from an airplane when I was traveling. I wanted to give a sort of warm feeling to my image so first I went to Image>Adjustments>Hue and Saturation and changed the Hue to -10, the Saturation to -65 and the Lightness to 10. Then I went to Image>Adjustments>Color Filter. I selected orange for the color and 50% density. Then at last, I went to Layer>New Adjustment Layer>Gradient Fill. I used grey and black for the gradient with Radial for the Style, so the grey would be in the center of the radial gradient. After that I changed the Blend Mode of this Gradient Fill to Color Dodge to create the sun behind the 3D text. Step 9 Add a new layer on top of the other layers including the 3D object. Then make sure you have black and white for the color and go to Filter>Render>Clouds. Change the Blend Mode to Color Burn. Step 10 With the Eraser Tool (E) delete parts of the layer leaving just the bottom part of the layer. Use the image below for reference. Step 11 I have already shown you how to create clouds using the Brush Tool (B), so let's do it again. Add a new layer on top of the others and go to Window>Brushes. For the brush settings use the image below for reference. The most important part is the Texture where you will selec the clouds pattern. It's also important to notice that if you increase the size of your brush you will have to increase the scale of the brush texture. Step 12 Select the Brush Tool (B) and white for the color, then with the brush we created start painting some clouds. First paint just a few clouds like the image below (1-2) Step 13 Select a light brown now for the color and paint more clouds, especially over the white clouds we created in the previous step. Step 14 Now select white again for the colors and paint more clouds. The idea of this 3 steps was to add depth to our clouds by adding some dark areas using the light brown. Step 15 Import a photo of a person to add to our scene, I'm using a photo of a girl sitting on a chair which was courtesy of Shutterstock, you can find it here. After that extract the background of the image and copy it and paste it in our design. Select just the girl and the chair and then go to 3D>Repoussé>Current Selection. Step 16 The idea here is to create a 3D object from a 2d photo so we can position it and create some shadows, but also to play and learn with the Repoussé tool. Change the Depth to 0.1 and the scale to 1. Remove the materials leaving only the front one. Now a very important detail, over the Internal Constraints, change the Type to Hole, that will create wholes in the areas that were transparent, otherwise Photoshop would render a big solid and it would ignore those transparent areas. Once again rotate, move and scale your object until you find the right position. You can do that later on as well. Step 17 In order to create a 3D scene with the 3D text and the girl we will have to merge them in one 3D layer. To do that is simple, select the 3D layers and go to 3D>Merge 3D Layers. By doing that you will create one 3D layer only with both objects. So over the 3D Palette you will see the 3D text and the Girl objects where you will be able to edit them like scale, rotate, move and change the extrude options as well. Step 18 Now the most important thing to do is to adjust your objects in your 3D scene (1). Move the lights so you can illuminate the scene properly and play around with other objects. As I mentioned before I'm still learning so the best thing to do is try different things, render a preview to see how it looks and try again. To see all the 3D objects click on the little icon at the bottom of the 3D palette, the one with the eye and select Show All. (2) Step 19 The best thing with the Repoussé tool is that you can edit the 3D object anytime during your design process, so if you think a different position might look better you can do it or try a different illumination everything is possible. Conclusion Once you position all your 3D elements there's one extra step to do that is different from the Photoshop workflow which is render the 3D object using the Raytrace Final mode. Photoshop then will render the object and create the shadows and details, it usually takes a few minutes to do that, but it's a necessary process. If you are used to other 3D softwares you already know that. So basically in this tutorial/making-of I showed you a little bit of this incredible new tool that comes with the new Photoshop CS5 Extended. There are lots of things to learn and practice but I'm sure the Repoussé will be very useful for those, like me, that are trying to mix 3D objects with photos and other 2D objects that we are used to do in Photoshop. Click on the Image for Full Preview Download the Photoshop File Click here to download the Photoshop file used for this tutorial