Using Light and Shade to Bring Text to Life
Tutorial Details
- Program: Photoshop
- Difficulty: Intermediate
- Completion Time: 1-2 hours
Download Source Files
The best book I’ve ever read on drawing is one called Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain. After reading it, I’m still pretty bad at drawing, but I did learn a lot about light and shade. In this tutorial we are going to take some very basic principles of light and shade to make a rather impressive-looking text effect.
Light Sources
So before we start the tutorial, here is a little diagram about how light might hit an object. Here we have a square object in the middle with light coming from the top left. You can see that where the light hits the object, a shadow is cast on the other side. Note that the shadow is not a Photoshop drop shadow, which makes the object look like it’s hovering above the canvas. Here we want the object to look like it’s a three dimensional thing stuck on the canvas, extruding if you like. Now tell me what other Photoshop tutorial site gives you diagrams? It’s like being back in school!
Step 1
We begin the tutorial by drawing a subtle Linear Gradient from dark grey to darker grey. Note that because we want our light to come from the top left, that’s where the lighter part of the document is.
Step 2
Now we place some text. I’ve used a very cool font called Agency FB, which has a condensed, hard-edge feel to it. You should make the text a grey-ish blue color – #c2c8d4 to be precise.
Step 3
Next Ctrl-click the text layer and create a new layer above it. In the new layer, with that selection still held, draw a linear gradient of #495a79 to transparent from bottom right to left. So in other words you are darkening the bottom right as shown.
Step 4
Set your foreground color to Black (you can do this by pressing the letter ‘D’ on your keyboard which restores the defaults).
Now Ctrl-click the text layer again and create a new layer beneath the text layer. Now press the down arrow on your keyboard once and the right arrow on your keyboard once. Then press Alt+Backspace to fill it with black. Then press down and right again one time and fill with black. Each time you will be moving 1px right and 1px down. You should repeat this process about 30 times (which is why it’s important to use Alt+Backspace instead of the Fill tool).
Note also that to move the selection but not the fills when you press your arrow keys, you have to have one of the Marquee tools on. If you switch to the Move Tool (V) when you press down and right you will actually move the black fill as well as the selection and will just be filling the same pixels over and over.
Step 5
Here’s what you should now have. Now deselect and make sure you are on the shadow layer, then go to Filter > Blur > Motion Blur and use values of -45 degrees and a distance of 30px.
Step 6
Set your shadow layer to Multiply and about 40% Opacity and then hold down Shift and press the down arrow and then the right arrow. This will move your object right and down 10px each (Shift tells Photoshop to go 10px at a time instead of 1). Now you may have some of the blurred parts of the shadow sticking out to the top and left of the object. If this is the case, grab a small soft eraser and gently erase away anything which shouldn’t be shaded (remember the diagram at the beginning).
Step 7
Next duplicate the shadow layer, hold Shift and move it down and right again. Then run the Motion Blur filter again with a distance of 50px this time and set this layer to Multiply and 20% Opacity. This is just to give our shadows more of a trail off.
Step 8
Now create a new layer above all the other layers, hold down Ctrl and click the main text layer to select its pixels and back on your new layer fill the selection with White. Don’t let go of the selection just yet though. Instead press down and right one time to move 1px away and then hit Delete.
Set this thin white line layer to about 80% Opacity.
Step 9
As you can see, the thin white line gives a sort of highlight effect where the light source is hitting the text and gives the impression that the text is more three dimensional.
Step 10
Next we want to create some streams of natural light. Create a new layer above all the others and draw four or five white rectangles approximately similar to those shown (i.e. getting fatter as they go down).
Step 11
Now press Ctrl+T to transform and rotate and enlarge the rectangles as shown. Now normally you’d press Enter when you’re finished, but this time don’t let go just yet. Instead, right-click and you will get a pop up menu showing you other types of transforms you can do. Choose Perspective. The reason it’s important to do this in one step is so that you don’t lose your bounding box. So take the top left two points and bring them closer together so that the light appears to be coming from one place and spreading out.
Step 12
Here we have our four strips of "light." Now set the layer to Overlay and 20% Opacity and then go to Filter > Blur > Gaussian Blur and give it a blur radius of 6px.
Step 13
You should now have something that looks like this.
Step 14
Now since those thin strips are meant to be light, it would make sense if our highlight layer only showed up where the light was hitting right? So Ctrl-click the light layer and then click on the highlight layer from earlier, then while the selection is still on, click on the Add Layer Mask button (it’s the one at the bottom of the layer palette to the right of the ‘f’ icon). This will create a Mask that only shows the highlight layer where the light overlaps it.
Step 15
So you could stop here; it’s already looking pretty good, but we’ll finish this effect off by adding some warm lighting.
Step 16
So first of all create a new layer just above the background and fill it with a pinkish color – #9d506c.
Step 17
Now set the pink layer’s blending mode to Colour and the opacity to 20%. This gives our background a nice reddish-warmth. Over the top of this we can now mix in some yellows. If we don’t put in the reddish cast underneath, the result comes out looking overly yellow and not particularly real.
Step 18
Next we create a layer just above the pink. Fill it completely with white and then go to Filter > Render > Lighting Effects. I don’t often use Lighting Effects, but it does have one very cool preset called the Two O’clock Spotlight, which you can select by going to Style at the top and looking through the options. You can pretty much use this as default, but for our purposes it helps to extend the ellipse to make it a little longer (i.e. the spotlight is a little further off).
Step 19
Now we set the lighting layer to Overlay and you have something like shown below. Now duplicate that layer, move it above all the other and set it to 40% Opacity. This makes sure that our warm lighting is also interacting with the text and not just the background.
http://psd.tutsplus.com/tutorials/text-effects-tutorials/using-light-and-shade-to-bring-text-to-life/
Conclusion
Finally, we duplicate the top lighting layer one more time and set it to 65% Opacity, then click the Add Layer Mask button on the layers palette again and draw a linear white to black gradient from top left to bottom right. This makes the extra lighting layer fade off as it goes down right.
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great tutorial
thanks
Bit of a deviation from the exact tutorial. Here’s a creative example of this powerful tutorial.
http://blindriotx.deviantart.com/art/LTPhi-Flyer-Contact-202768059
You never explain your tutorials the best way you should, you always keep some secrets so being a beginner it doesn’t help at all and you people suck, learn to publish a complete toturial than a labyrinth
Learn to use photoshop’s basic tools and features before trying to do advanced techniques and peoples tutorials may not seem like labyrinths.
True.. Some people are just so ungrateful and expect the world to work they way they want it..
I’m a complete noob and after a couple of times ”verifying” this tutorial and trying out things I made it!!
Result was really nice, thanks for this!!
nice tutorial..especially with the “highlight”.
I’m on a photoshop cs5 and I cannot find the Filter > Render > Lighting Effects.
Anybody else?
I have also the same problems with the “Filter > Render > Lighting Effects”
I have Windows 64 and Photoshop CS4
@flashysite
Are you perhaps running PS on a Mac?
Lightning plug in is supported in 32- and 64-bit Windows, and only 32-bit Mac OS
Hope this helps
OMG! You are a genius! So what if you left some things out, it makes for a great adventure to find out how to do them
This makes no sense to someone who is new to Photoshop. NO clue how to get the thing to move if you don’t have the Move tool selected. I’ve tried it every way possible and it just doesn’t make any Goddam sense. Maybe you know how to use the thing but for someone writing a tutorial, epic fail.
Step 6 really confuses the crap outta me. Can anyone clarify it please? Once I move the shadow layer 10 px down and right, it doesn’t look like it’s supposed to be there.
lol nvm, I over read an important part.
I understood what he wanna produce but I didnt get his instruction. So just move the darn shadow with your Move Tool to wherever position you see fit. Then erase the bleeding of the shadow at the top.
Its looks great but u didnt spell out the procedure clearly…it doesnt help at all.
It means that you are still a beginner. This tutorial is for Intermediate
Ellboy,
It has nothing to do with skill level and everything to do with the fact the tutorial was written as if we can all read minds. These are called TUTORIALS for a reason. If we all knew everything about Photoshop, we wouldn’t be here, would we?
I found your comment condescending and rude. They were just asking a question that would have taken the same amount of time to answer as it did for you to put in your useless 2 cents about your perception of what their skill level was.
Step 3 – what do you mean by “with that selection still held”? I cannot figure out how to fill type with a gradation.
I just figured it out. I needed to click on the icon to get a drop down menu and choose “select pixels”
Hurray!!
Check this out :
http://ionufodorut.deviantart.com/art/Photoshop-214011684
this tutorial really helped my alot ! Thank you!
Great little tutorial! Thankyou for the tips, lighting effects look like they have worked really well.
Hi,
Great tutorial.
Never ceases to amaze me who you figure out how to do this sort of stuff. You guys must really live this. I only started with this program and am guessing it will be years before I have a decent grasp on 1/4 of what this program is capable of!
Thanks Again.
Cheers
I’ve used Photoshop for a lot of years, and this has to be one of the most confusing, poorly-written tutorials I’ve ever seen. I really like the skill you’re trying to teach, but you have to be a LOT more clear. If you’re going to use pixel measurements, START with a page size! If you’re going to tell us to move something, make sure we know that we need to duplicate the layer first.
I’ve been able to figure out a modified version (I can’t figure out your version), but only because I know the software pretty well. You have a great idea here, but you need to walk people through the exact steps. Very frustrating.
Can you please explain how to get the white boxes (the light) all on one layer? When I use Rectangle Tool, it creates new layers each time. Your wording indicate that the four light rectangles are all available on one selection and I am unable to do this. PS CS3. Thanks.
Ben,
Just use the rectangle box draw it and yes it will create more layers. Jsut select all rectangle layers that you drew and right click and select merge. fix.
thank you very much… very nice
Thank you. Simple but the result is great. I learnt a lot from this but there is an easier method for the whole step 6
Nice TUT. But you must add some description that might be helpful for beginners. However thumbs for the tut.
At Step 3, when I use the gradient tool, the color effect starts from lower right corner to the top left corner of the whole image area while in the tutorial, the color effect only applies to the text area. Could someone tell me how this is done properly.
Can someone please help me, I’m stuck at step 3 (I’m such a noob). It says “ctrl-click the text layer and create a new layer above it”, but when I ctrl-click it nothing happens.
Ok, I figured that out, you can delete both of my comments.
I’m a complete beginner – this is my first time EVER, in my life, working with Photoshop.
Yet, this was pretty self-explanatory and easy! I could follow everything!
I had fun with this tutorial; thank you, my first ever project looks great!
Very nice tutorial, check out my versions here:
Normal version:
http://cinitriqs.deviantart.com/#/d47lp2o
Texturised version:
http://cinitriqs.deviantart.com/#/d47lpd1
Thanks again for the tut!
Sweet jesus, now I can make a signature for my forum. (:
i got everything correct but when in the motion blur step, the whole text becomes blurry only the shadow is clear. What did i do wrong? i think its in the motion blur settings but i cant tell what. I copied everything of yours but its still the same. im using cs5 btw
nvm. got it
wow, super nice actually, can’t even think how to make shadow effect like this, looks like i’m still far from intermadiate level… all the shadowing effect along with the light stream just make the artwork more come to live… i tought step 15 is enough already, but when u add more detail, it just even better…
BTW, B.U.T full….
“We begin the tutorial by drawing a subtle Linear Gradient from dark grey to darker grey. Note that because we want our light to come from the top left, that’s where the lighter part of the document is.”
No explanation of how this is done. Bad tutorial
If even this is out of your capabilities you should really start looking at the beginner tuts, I say this not to be condescending or anything but more to counter all the negativity about this tut, which is not that hard IMO
Great post! I’m working on something similar – however the shadow comes from behind and under the actual. How would you go about the shadow and the lighting? Any tips?
This tutorial isn’t good. You shoud explain every step. It’s partially hard to comprehend, thought !!
perfect tut I did it thanks you very much
Haven’t read through all this to see if it was suggested, but why not use Ctrl-Alt-T to transform from center when doing the 30 or so shadow layers, apply your shift to the new layer, then Ctrl-Alt-Shift-T to create new shadow layers all with the transform applied?
Links is broken!
=(
I hope I will never ever see your tutorial again on psdtuts
Great tutorial, thanks! I would only want to add the lightning effect is only available in rgb
I had to dig a bit to find it out.
Cheers!
Good tutorial, easy to follow. Here’s my result: http://www.flickr.com/photos/northstreamer/6532514589/in/photostream
I also added a bokeh lens flare to emphasis the sun hitting the screen.
Here’s how I got past step 3.
Great tutorial, here is what I have come up with, done it in silver effect. Http://www.divine-media.co.uk
Thanks for this tutorial
Things just aren’t happening like you’re saying they will in some cases. In others, the instruction is unclear. Altogether a frustrating experience.
Well i liked the tutorial. The lighting effects are really good. Thanks for the knowledge you have shared with me.
i’m fucked up at 3 step….
Step 4 : i can’t move down my new layer with the selection because the area is empty.
Hope that someone will be able to help me.
Thank you
Thanks for such an awesome tut….
lost u at step 4
Brilliant tutorial.
There’s got to be a better way to do the lighting. I am a beginner and this is a great tutorial there is no way I could have done it on my own, however when I get to the final product I can not help but think that the rays of light look to un-natural. I added a little outer glow to help with it, but I think that the light rays are too uniform.