In this tutorial, I will show you the steps I took to create this really great-looking, abstract style text effect by using custom brushset (which we will be making one of our own) with dynamics, plus adding artistic effect with Photoshop filters. Have a try!

This is an intermediate level tutorial so some steps can be a bit tricky :)

Here is a preview of the final effect: (click to enlarge)

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Ok let’s get started!

Step 1

Create a new document sized  1400px * 650px, fill the background layer with the following gradients:

Step 2

Create a new layer on top of the background called “light top”, grab a big soft round brush with a white color, do a single click on the top centre region of the canvas:

Create another create called “light bottom” and use a similar brush as mentioned above, do a single click on the centre of the canvas, resize and perspective it with free transform tool (Ctrl + T) to produce more depth for it:

Here is the effect so far:

Step 3

Type some texts on top of all previous layers we created. You can use any font you like but I preferred a big, bold font (download it here):

On the text layer, apply the following layer blending options:

Drop Shadow

Bevel and Emboss

Gradient Overlay

Stroke

Here is the effect so far:

Optional: to add a bit more depth to the text, make a duplicate this text layer, drop the opacity of the duplicated layer to around 20% and move it to the left of the original text layer a bit:

Step 4

Now let’s start make a simple brushset. Create a new document with a size of 200px * 200px, leave the background layer as white, and grab the polygon tool and draw a shape as shown below (use the distort option from the free-transform tool to adjust the shape):

The Polygon Tool:

Polygon Tool Settings:

Draw the shape:

Tip: use the trim tool to get rid of the extra height and width of the canvas.

Important: after drawing the shape, make sure you rastersize this shape layer. and make the background layer tranparent.

Once you finish the aboves, go to Edit > DefineBrush Preset:

In the box popped up, type a name for this brushset and hit “OK”, you will see the newly created brush appearing in the brush list:

Step 5

Select this newly created brush, apply the following brush dynamics to it:

Shape dynamics

Scattering

And tick the “Airbrushing” and “Smoothing” options.

Create a new layer underneath the orginal text layer, draw some random patterns as shown below with this dynamic brush, as shown below: (try adjusting the brush size)

Step 6

Now let’s spice up the effect a bit by adding some cloud over the text. So create a new layer called  “cloud”, render some cloud inside it with the cloud filter (set foreground color to a dark grey, and black background colour).

Before you render the cloud, you have to make a selection with the Lasso Tool around the text (with around 20px feather settting), then render the cloud inside the seletion.

You will have the following effect:

Change the blending mode of this cloud layer to “Screen”, you will have the following effect:

You can also duplicate, resize this cloud layer and move those duplicated layer around for more effects, as show below:

Resize

Duplicate

Step 7

To produce even more depth for the text, here is a quick way to do it: create a new layer just above the original text layer, set the blending mode of this layer to “Vivid Light”, grab a soft brush to paint some color onto it:

Add a black and white adjustment layer on top of all layers, adjust the settings accordingly, until you see there is a shadow appearing on the bottom of the text:

Here is the effect you’re aiming to achieve: (you can see now because we have a shadow under the text, the overall effect looks deeper and more attractive)

Add another color layer on top of the black and white adjustment layer, set the blending mode to “color” and paint some color on it, you will have the following effect:

Step 8

Now we’re on the best part of this tut – apply the filter effects! Firstly we flatten the image, then duplicate the background layer once and apply the following Reduce Noise filter to the duplicated layer:

and you will see the text look much clearer and the overall image looks sharper:

Duplicate this sharpened layer once, and apply the following motion blur settings to it:

You will have the following effect:

Change the blending mode of this motion blur layer to “Hard Light” and erase the portion shown blow with a big soft brush (we don’t want the whole text to be blurred)

Step 9

Go back to the sharpened text layer and make another duplication of it, drag it to the top and apply the reticulation filter to it (Filter > Sketch > Reticulation):

You will see the following effect:

Change the blending mode to “color dodge” and erase the edge of the layer off, you will have the following effect:

Optional: go to site5 such as qbrushes.net and find some grungy brushsets, and create a new layer with the blending mode set to “overlay”, paint on it with your choice of grungy brush.

Here is my effect so far:

Step 10

We’re almost done! To add some final touches, we can create a new layer on top of all other layers, render some cloud inside it and set the blending mode to “soft light”, you will have the following effect:

I also added a colour balance adjustment layer on top of all layer to finish the effect off:

and here is my final effect for this tutorial: (click to enlarge)

Ok that’s it for this tutorial! Just one last word: always try out different layer blending modes and see what effect that bring you! Sometimes you will be surprised to see some real cool effects :)

I hope you enjoy it and find it useful and inspirational!

Until next time, have a nice day!

In this tutorial, I will show the processes involved in designing and creating this really cool, Geometric Shaped Typography with Grungy Background in Photoshop. This is a simple tutorial yet the effect looks awesome, have a try!

Along the way, I will also give you some tricks that you can use for creating awesome lighting and smoky effect to spice up your design.

The techniques involved in creating this typo include layer blending, filter effects, image adjustments and custom brushsets. Hope you enjoy it!

Here is a preview of the final effect: (click to enlarge)

PSD File Download

You can download the PSD File for this tutorial via the VIP Members Area for only $6.95/Month (or less)! You will not only get this PSD File, but also 70+ other PSD Files + Extra Goodies + Exclusive Photoshop tutorial there. Signup now and get exclusive :) Find out more about the VIP Members Areas

OK let’s get started!

To complete this tutorial, you will need the following stocks:

Font

Brushset

Step 1

Create a new document sized 1200 * 1700px, fill the background layer with black colour. Create a new layer on top of it and grab the brushset we just downloaded and paint some grungy texture as shown below:

The trick here is to set your brush flow and opacity to a reletively low level, both around 30% – 40%, and vary the brushset size when you paint. Also don’t stick with one brushset, try mixing different ones together and see what result that brings you.

If you want to skip this step, you can simply download a copy of this background texture here.

Now we want to make a space for our text and create some depth for the image. To do so, on the texture layer, add the following layer mask to it:

To adjust the lighting contrast a bit, we can add a Curves adjustment layer on top of all previous layers:

and here is the effect so far:

Step 2

Use the font we download before, type and position the text as shown below: (Use a dark gray colour as font colour)

Tips: type the texts on seperate layers, use the free transform tool (Ctrl + T) to rotate and fit them together.

Once you’re happy with the position, rasterise and merge those text layers and apply the following layer blending option to the merged layer:

Drop Shadow

Bevel and Emboss

Gradient Overlay

and you will have the following effect:

Now we’re in the fun part of this tutorial – Duplicate this merged text layer five times, and set each layer’s opacity as shown below:

Use your up and right arrow key on your keyboard, repeatly type them until each layer seperates from each other and form this effect as shown below:

Step 3

Load the selection of the last text layer (hold ctrl + left-click the thumbnail image of that text layer on the layer pallette), and apply the following refine edge settings:

Maintain the selection, create a new layer called “cloud” and render some cloud in it: (Black and White colour)

Duplicate this cloud layer three times, and drag the last text layer on top of the duplicated cloud layer, you will have the following effect:

Duplicate the cloud layer twice, and drag the two layers on top of text layer, change their blending mode to “overlay” and you will have the following effect:

Step 4

Now we can add some colours onto the image to spice it up a bit. To do this, I simply create a new layer called “colour 1″ on top of all previous layers, and grab a big soft round brush and select some colour I like to paint over it:

Change the blending mode of this layer to “overlay”.

I also want to highlight the edge of the grungy background, so I add another layer called “colour 2″ and grab a brown colour brush to paint around the edges:

Set the blending mode of this layer to “colour dodge”.

You can also highlight some part of the text, simply create another layer called “highlight” and grab a white soft round, big size brush and paint over desired area:

Change thie blending mode of this layer to “soft light”.

For final refinement, I added two adjustment layers on top of all previous layers:

Curves

Colour balance

Apply the following mask to the colour balance adjustment layer:

Overall, you will have the following effect:

Ok that’s pretty much it for this tutorial! Of course this doesn’t stop you from enhancing it and put it some your own creativity to it.

I further added some lines and apply some of this brushset around the edge of the text.

Here is my final effect for this tutorial: (click to enlarge)

That’s it for this tut! Hope you enjoy this tutorial and find it useful and inspirational! Cheers and have a great day!

Along the way, we will be using the Polygon Tool to draw the star, and use some simple layer blending effect to add the shining, glossy effect to it. I will also use the Pen Tool and dynamic brush settings for the final effect. The effect is easy to achieve and very practical. Have a try!

Here is preview of the final effect for this tutorial: (Click to enlarge)

Alternative coloured version:

OK let’s get started!

Step 1

Create a new document size 800 * 800 px and use the gradient tool to fill the background layer as shown below:

Select the Polygon Tool by left-click the Shape Tool symbol from the toolbox and hold, as shown below:

You will notice a series of shape tool options appearing across the top, apply the following settings:

Sides: 5

Radius: 10px

Indent Sides By: 50%

Make sure to tick “Smooth Corners” and “Star” option.

Draw a star on top of the background layer as shown below: (You can press Ctrl + T to free-tranform it if you like)

Rename this layer as “Star”.

Step 2

On the “Star” layer, apply the following layer blending options:

Drop Shadow

Inner Shadow

Outer Glow

Inner Glow

Bevel and Emboss

Contour

And you will have the followin effect on the star layer:

Step 3

Now we can add some decoration on the star so it doesn’t look too boring. To do this, we can simply create a new layer below the “Star” layer, use the Pen Tool to draw a working path like this:

Hint: Try holding down “Shift” key while dragging the anchor points.

Then grab a 18px, 0% hardness brush, select the Pen Tool and right-click on the path and choose “storke path”:

Apply the following settings:

And you will see the following effect:

Duplicate this working path layer a few times, rotate, scale and distort the duplicated layer using the Free Transform tool (Ctrl + T). Here is my effect so far:

Once you’re happy with the result, you can merge those duplicated abstract line layers together, then duplicate some more layers based on the merged layers, result as shown below: (rotate, resize if necessary)

And we can add some dots around the star for the final touch-ups. To do this, grab a 9px, soft round brush and press “F5″ or go to Window > Brushes to bring up the brush window, apply the following dynamic settings:

Shape Dynamics

Scattering

Other Dynamics

Make sure to check “Airbrush” and “Smoothing” options, too.

Once the brush is made, create a new layer under the “star” layer and paint those dots in random areas as below:

OK, that’s it for this tutorial! You can of course add some of your own texture or filter effect and see what the end results are! Remember to always keep your own creativity!

Here is an alternative version I have:

Hope you enjoy this tutorial, drop me a comment if you have any question, I will try my best to help you out.

Cheers and have a nice day!