In this tutorial we will design a cool retro text effect, which is becoming more and more popular in today's design world. Today you'll learn how to use the perspective tool to create the effect of depth of field, and discover how designers use default gradients in unusual ways.
Effect preview
Before we begin, let's take a look at what the image we're going to create will look like.
Step 1
Before starting, you will need to download the font Seqa, which comes from the dafont website. After downloading, install it and open photoshop after installation.
The first step is quick and easy. Fill the background layer with black and rename it "Background". When entering text, it is best to make it look like a square as shown below. Make sure the text is left aligned. Now you have a black background layer and a text layer. In my example, I used 100pt for the PSD part and 72pt for the tuts text part, and made them match in width.
Step 2
Open the character panel, set the font color to #e59710, and then use ctrl+T, or use the font size to change the font size. Now let's change the character spacing. Place the mouse between P and S and set the character spacing to - 55, so we get a pretty good spacing between two characters. Then place the mouse between S and D and set the word spacing to -40
Step 3
Now, we're going to stylize the text, thinking about the second step, we want to get a nice golden text with sharp edges and a slightly slanted 3D look. So, we need tilt on the outside to get a sense of depth, and a little shadow on the inside and a highlight gradient.
Now let's highlight this tilt, and we're going to use an inner glow, but in the screenshot below we've arranged it in reverse order. My first step is usually to add a gradient, then a tilt, then use glows and shadows.
Step 4
It's time to use the Perspective Tool. First you will have to delete the layer, so duplicate the text layer and then add another layer on top of the duplicated layer. Now select your duplicated text layer and your empty layer. Then use ctrl+E to flatten the two layers. This method not only deletes the layer, but also does not delete the layer style.
Now create a sense of depth by going to Edit-->Transform-->Perspective.
Step 5
Copy the deformed text twice, create a folder, put these three layers into this folder, and name the folder "text", and name the three text layers "front" ( Top) "mid" (middle) "back" (bottom).
Use the up, down, left and right arrows on the keyboard to move the "mid" and "back" layers to the right. The effect is as shown in the picture below. As you can see, the "mid" layer is closer to the "front" layer, and the "back" layer is further away from the "front" layer.
Step 6
Select the "mid" layer, set its fill to 0%, double-click the "mid" layer, open the layer style panel, and set the gradient overlay, as shown in the figure.
Step 7
Create a new layer above the "front" layer and name it "chrome grad". Now hold down ctrl and click on the "front" layer to get the text layer selection, select the gradient tool, and open the gradient editor, as shown in the figure below , select the gradient called "chrome", return to the layer panel, select the "chrome grad" layer, pull out a gradient from the upper left to the lower right in the selection, and finally select the layer blending mode to soft light.
