How to make 3D spectacular text effect in Photoshop

December 4th, 2009 by ART-D Posted in Adobe Photoshop, Text Effects

In this tutorial, I will show you how to make 3D spectacular text effect using simple techniques from Xara3D and Photoshop. We’ll use Xara3D to create the text and Photoshop to decorate the text with different brushes. Let’s get started!

Final Image Preview

Start by creating each letter separately in a 3D program, I use Xara3D (download the Xara3D 6 trial to your Desktop, run the installer file and follow the on-screen instructions), and import them into a Photoshop document.

Create a new file in Xara3D and then start representing by one figure of the next year (2010)

Select for the beginning the text options by clicking on the Text Options icon:

… and then the Color options:

… set the Extrusion options:

Also the Bevel Options

… finally the Shadow Options:

Then we have to set also the angle of the figures’ position on the file and the light:

Choose after that the Export to File option and save each character:

Create a new document (Ctrl+N) in Adobe Photoshop with the size 1920px by 1200px (RGB color mode) at a resolution of 72 pixels/inch. Using the Rectangle Tool (U), let’s represent a big rectangle reserved for background we want to have.

For this layer click on Add a layer style icon from bottom part of the Layers panel and select Gradient Overlay:

Click in the color bar to open the Gradient Editor and set the color stops as shown. Click OK to close the Gradient Editor dialog box.

We’ve got the next background:

Import the earlier saved figures into a Photoshop document. Keep each figure in its own layer, and then arrange them around each other, in whatever way looks good to you.

For the layer containing the first ‘0′ figure we’ll adjust the Hue/Saturation (CTRL+U) settings. Click and drag the Hue slider to change the color of the selected figure

We’ve got the next color for first ‘0′ figure:

Next we’ll represent four new layers (Create new layer) for each figure and select Hard Round brush of white color from Brush Tool (B)

and paint very accurately the frontal parts of the figures as shown:

Each layer must have different Layer Style. For the layer contain ‘2′ figure, click on Add a layer style icon from bottom part of the Layers panel and select Gradient Overlay:

Click in the color bar to open the Gradient Editor and set the color stops as shown. Click OK to close the Gradient Editor dialog box.

We’ve got the next gradient for ‘2′ figure:

Set the Layer Style >Gradient Overlay for the ‘0′ figure as shown:

Click in the color bar to open the Gradient Editor and set the color stops as shown. Click OK to close the Gradient Editor dialog box.

We’ve got the next gradient for ‘0′ figure:

Set the Layer Style >Gradient Overlay for the ‘1′ figure as shown:

Click in the color bar to open the Gradient Editor and set the color stops as shown. Click OK to close the Gradient Editor dialog box.

We’ve got the next gradient for ‘1′ figure:

Set the Layer Style > Gradient Overlay for the very last figure:

Click in the color bar to open the Gradient Editor and set the color stops as shown. Click OK to close the Gradient Editor dialog box.

We’ve got the next gradients for figures:

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Tags: brushes, christmas, cs4, new-year, Photoshop, text-effect, xara3d

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