Noting

Shiny Calligraphy Text Effect in Photoshop

Tags
* photoshop
* text-effect
* tutorial
* Typography
Last week I posted some articles about typography and received quite a few emails asking me to create a tutorial on text effects. So I decided to play a bit with Photoshop to create a nice sort of 3D effect using a calligraphy font and a lot of Layer Styles. The effect is reallysimple and we will take a look at how to create patterns and light effects with Blend Modes.
Step 1
Open Photoshop and create a new document, I used 1920x1200 pixels for the Size. Then fill the background with a very dark color #1f1e1e.

Step 2
With the Background layer selected go to Layer>Layer Style>Gradient Overlay. Choose grey (#707070) and white for the colors. Change the BlendMode to Multiply and the Opacity to 60%. The Style will be Radial. Make sure that the white is in the center. What will happen is that as we're using multiply the edges of the image will be darker. I'm applying this gradient via layer styles because I want to add a filter to the layer later on and then I will be able to try different colors.

Step 3
Now go to Filter>Noise>Add Noise. Use 2%,Gaussian and make sure you selected Monochromatic. Adding noise to gradients is really good because it makes the gradient more subtle.

Step 4
Let's add the text. We will need a caligraphy style font, I'm using Champignon and you can download it at http://dafont.com. Type Abducted first.

Step 5
Now right below the "Abducted" line type "by". I used another font for it, "Champignon Alt S..."and you can download it at http://dafont.com as well. Use the image below for reference of position and try to connect the words like the "Bs".

Step 6
Type the word "Design". Pay use the end of the "y" to connect with the "D", it's very important that the words connect otherwise the effect won't work as well.

Step 7
To make the effect more attractive let's add some swirls. This is prettymuch the same thing I did in another tutorial the Swirl Type in Photoshop. But basically, let's import a swirl element and place it before the "A". The one I'm using was courtesy of Shutterstock and you can download it here

Step 8
Place another element in the end of "Design" using the "n". I used the same element that I used in the previous step, just a little smaller.

Step 9
Now addanother swirl in the "Y".

Step 10
Now that you have the text with the swirls convert it to Smart Objects. That way we can edit it anytime. Then go to Layer>Layer Styles>Gradient Overlay. Use Pink and Blue for the colors, Linear for the Style, and 90º for the angle.

Step 11
After the Gradient Overlay select Drop Shadow. Use Multiply for the Blend Mode, 120º for the Angle, 5 pixels for theDistance and 20 pixels for the Size.

Step 12
After the Drop Shadow select Bevel and Emboss. Use Inner Bevel for the Style, Smooth for the Technique, 190% for the Depth. For the Direction use Up, for the Size use 6 pixels and 8 pixels for the Soften. Now for the Shading part use 120º for the Angle, 30º for the Altitude. For the Highlight Mode use Color Dodge and white for the color with 75%Opacity. Then for the Shadow Mode use Multiply and black for the color with 45% Opacity. Select Contour as well.

Step 13
Duplicate the text layer and the the first thing to do is change the Fill to 0%. That way there won't be any color but the Layer Style will still work over a transparent layer. Disable the Gradient Overlay as well. For the Bevel and Emboss change the Direction to Down. Alsoincrease the Depth to 370%. For the Size use 2 pixels and 8 pixels for the Soften. Now for the Shading, change the Angle to 145º, Altitude to 25º. The Highlight Mode will be Screen with white for the color and 100% Opacity, while the Shadow Mode will be 0%.

Step 14
Duplicate the layer again to make the effect stronger.

Step 15
Duplicate the layer again but this time let's edit the Bevel and...