3d text simple

8/11/2019 3d Text Simple

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Step 1: Create a New DocumentTo begin, lets create a brand new Photoshop document. Go up to the File menu at the top of the

screen and choose New , or for a quicker way, press the keyboard shortcut Ctrl+N (Win)

/ Command+N (Mac). Whichever way you choose, Photoshop pops up the New Document dialogbox. Enter the size you need for your document. For this tutorial, Im going to enter a Width of 6

inches , a Height of 4 inches , and a Resolution of 300 pixels/inch , which is a standard resolution for

professional quality printing. Im also going to set my Background Contents to White , which will set

the background color of my new document to white. When youre done, click OK in the top right

corner of the dialog box to exit out of it. Your new Photoshop document will appear on the screen.

Create a new Photoshop document using the New Document dialog box.

Step 2: Select The Type Tool From Photoshops Tools Palette To add text to the document, well need to use Photoshops Type Too l. Select it from the Tools

palette, or press the letter T on your keyboard to select it with the shortcut:

Select the Type Tool.

Step 3: Choose A Font From The Options Bar


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Next, we need to choose a font. With the Type Tool selected, youll n otice that the Options Bar at the

top of the screen has changed to show the options for the Type Tool. Choose whichever font youd

like to use from the list of fonts that you currently have available on your computer. This 3D effect

works best with fonts t hat have big, thick letters. Im going to choose Impact . You can also choose a

size for your text if you like, but its not really necessary at this point since we can easily change thesize of the text later, as well see. For now, all we need is the font :

Choose a font from the Options Bar.

Step 4: Choose A Color For Your TextNext, we need to choose a color for our text. If you look further to the right in the Options Bar, youll

see a color swatch . The color swatch shows the current text color. To change the color, simply clickon the color swatch:

Change the color of the text by clicking on the color swatch in the Options Bar.

This will bring up Photoshops Color Picker . Choose whichever color youd like to u se for your text.

Im going to select a bright shade of red. When youre done, click OK in the top right corner of the

Color Picker to exit out of it:


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Choose a new color for the text from the Color Picker, then click OK to exit out of it.

The color swatch in the Options Bar will change to show the color youve selected.

Step 5: Add Your Text To The DocumentWith our font and text color selected, click inside the document and add your text. Im going to type

PHOTOSHOP, all in capital letters to enhance the effect. Dont worry if the text appears too large

or too small for now. We can fix that in a moment:

Click inside the document and add your text.

When youre done typing, click on the checkmark in the Options Bar to accept the text and exit out of

text editing mode:

Exit out of text editing mode by clicking on the checkmark in the Options Bar.

If we look at our Layers palette, we can see that Photoshop has conveniently placed our text on its

own layer above the Background layer. This is what will allow us to work with the text independently

from the white background behind it:


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The text appears on its own layer in the Layers palette.

Step 6: Resize The Type If Needed

If your find that your text is too small (or too large), we can easily fix that using Photoshops FreeTransform command. First, make sure your text layer is selected in the Layers palette (selected

layers are highlighted in blue). Then go up to the Edit menu at the top of the screen and choose Free

Transform . You can also select the Free Transform command with the keyboard

shortcut Ctrl+T (Win) / Command+T (Mac):

Select Free Transform from the Edit menu.

Youll see the Free Transform box and handles appear around your text in the document. To resize

the text, hold down your Shift key, then click any of the corner handles (the little squares) and drag

the corner inward to make the text smaller or outward to make it larger. Holding the Shift key down

as you drag constrains the aspect ratio so you dont accidentally distort the shape of the text as

youre resizing it. Im going to make my text just a little bit bigger by dragging the handle in thebottom right corner outward. You can also move the text if you need to by clicking anywhere inside

of the Free Transform box and dragging the text to a new location inside the document:


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Resize and move the text as needed with Free Transform.

When youre done, press Enter (Win) / Return (Mac) to accept the change and exit out of the Free

Transform command.

Step 7: Convert The Text To A ShapeTo creat e our 3D effect, we need to alter the perspective of our text. Theres only one problem

though. Photoshop doesnt allow us to alter the perspective of text (see how that can be a

problem?). To show you what I mean, make sure you still have the text layer selected, then go up to

the Edit menu at the top of the screen and select Transform from the list. A secondary menu will

appear showing all the various ways we can transform the contents of the layer we currently have

selected. Notice how the Distort and Perspective options are grayed out? That means theyre

currently unavailable to us, and thats because Photoshop cant perform either of these two types oftransformations on text.

The solution is to convert our text layer into whats called a shape layer . By converting the text to a

shape, well be able to change the perspective of it and create our effect. The only downside to

converting text to a shape is that the type will no longer be editable. In this case though, since we

have no need to edit our te xt, we dont need to worry about it.


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With the text layer still selected, go up to the Layer menu at the top of the screen, choose Type , and

then choose Convert to Shape :

Go to Layer > Type > Convert to Shape.

If we look in the Layers palette, we can see that the text layer now looks completely different, and

thats because its no longer a text layer. Photoshop has converted it to a shape layer, which means

were now free to apply a Perspective transformation to it and create our 3D text effect:

The text layer has been converted to a shape layer.

Step 8: Change The PerspectiveGo back up to the Edit menu. Youll see that the Transform option we looked at a moment ago has

been replaced with a new option named Transform Path . Again, thats because were dealing now

with a shape. Choose Transform Path from the list. When the secondary menu appears, youll see

that both the Distort and Perspective options are now available. Choose Perspective from the list:

Go to Edit > Transform Path > Perspective.


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The same box and handles that we saw earlier when we selected the Free Transform command will

appear arou nd the text (shape). The difference is, were now working in Perspective mode. To

change the perspective of the text and give it a three dimensional look, simply click on the handle in

the bottom right corner and drag it straight down. As you drag, the height of the right side of the text

will increase from its center, while the left side will remain unchanged:

Click on the bottom right corner handle and drag downward.

When youre happy with the perspective shift, press Enter (Win) / Return (Mac) to accept the

transformation. Your text should now look something like this:

The text now appears with a 3D perspective.

Step 9: Create Multiple Copies Of The Shape Layer, Each OneMoved Slightly Further To The Right


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This next step is the fun part. Were going to very quickly create multiple copies of our shape layer,

each one moved one pixel further to the right from the previous one. This will give our letters some

depth. First, select the Move Too l from the Tools palette, or just press the letter V on your keyboard

to select it with the shortcut. This trick only works with the Move Tool selected:

Select the Move Tool.

With the Move Tool selected and the shape layer selected in the Layers palette, hold down

your Alt (Win) / Option (Mac) key and press the right arrow key on your keyboard. Then press it

again. Then again. And again. Notice whats happening? Each time you press the right arrow keywith the Alt / Option key held down, youre creating a new copy of the shape layer and youre moving

the new copy one pixel over to the right. Holding down Alt / Option tells Photoshop to create a new

copy of the shape each time rather than simply moving the existing shape. The more times you

press the right arrow key, the more copies of the layer youll create, and the more depth w e give to

our letters.

Keep pressing the right arrow key until youre happy with the results. In my case, I pressed the arrow

key a total of 68 times, creating 68 copies of my shape, each one moved one pixel further to the

right. The number of times you press the arrow key will depend on the resolution of the document

youre working with. When youre done, your text should look something like this:

Hold down Alt (Win) / Option (Mac), then press the Right arrow key multiple times to give the letters

depth.


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Step 10: Move The Original Shape Layer To The Top Of TheLayer Stack In The Layers PaletteEach time we created a new copy of our shape, we created a new shape layer in the Layers palette,

and Photoshop placed each new layer directly above the previous layer. In my case, my Layers

palette now contains 68 copies of my original shape layer. The original shape layer is sitting abovethe Background layer, with all the copies piled on top of it. You can tell its the original because its

the only shape layer that doesnt contain the word "copy" in its name.

We need to move that original layer to the very top of the pile, and theres an easy way to do it. First,

click on the original layer in the Layers palette to select it. Then, press Ctrl+Shift+] (Win)

/ Command+Shift+] (Mac). Thats the right bracket key ("]") in case youre wondering. This

convenient shortcut will instantly move the currently selected layer directly to the top of the layer

stack:

The original shape layer now appears above the other layers in the Layers palette.

Step 11: Merge All The Copies TogetherWith our original layer now at the very top of the layer stack, we need to merge all of those copies of

the shape layer down to one layer. Click on the layer directly below the original layer in the Layers

palette (in other words, the second layer from the top). Then use the scroll bar on the right of the

Layers pale tte to scroll down to the layer directly above the Background layer. Dont just click on it

though to select it because that will deselect the layer you just selected at the top. Instead, hold

down the Shift key on the keyboard and then click on the layer to select it. This will select both layers

at the same time, along with every layer in between them. All of these layers will appear highlighted

in blue in the Layers palette.


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With all of our copied layers now selected, go up to the Layer menu at the top of the screen and

choose Merge Layers down near the bottom of the list. Or for a faster way, press the keyboard

shortcut Ctrl+E (Win) / Command+E (Mac):

Go to Layer > Merge Layers.

Photoshop will merge all of the selected layers into a single layer. If we look in our Layers palette,

we can see that we now have only three layers. The Background layer is on the bottom, the original

shape layer is on the top, and in between them is our newly merged layer:

All of the shape layer copies have been merged into a single layer.

Step 12: Add A Black-To-White Gradient To The Merged LayerTo give our letters a truly 3D appearance, lets complete things by adding a simple lighting effect. Or

at least, something that looks like a lighting effect. Click on the merged layer in the Layers palette toselect it if its not selected already. Then click on the Layer Styles icon at the bottom of the Layers

palette. A list of all the available layer styles will appear. Click on Gradient Overlay to select it:


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Choose the Black, White gradient.

Back in the main Gradient Overlay options, youll see the gradient preview are a now showing the

black to white gradient (if it wasnt already). Below it are a couple of important options. Make sure

the Style option is set to Linear and the gradient Angle is set to 90 :

Make sure the Style option is set to Linear and that the Angle is set to 90.

Click OK when youre done to exit out of the Layer Style dialog box, and were done! Photoshop

applies the black to white gradient to the merged layer, creating a shadow effect on the letters and

completing our simple 3D text effect:


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The final 3D text effect.

3d text simple

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