Design a Shining Crystal Text Effect in Photoshop

Posted on December 11th, 2008 under Text Effects, it has 24 Comments and 21,325 Views so far.

In this tutorial, I will show you a very simple way to achieve this cool shining crystal text effect in Photoshop. I accidentally discover this method when I was playing with the layer blending options and I decide to share this with you guys..

This is a short and simple tutorial and you should have no trouble doing it :). Have a try!

Here are some of the final text effect I made:

Ok let’s get started!

Step 1

Create a new document, size doesn’t really matter but I chose 800×400px because that’s where my comfort zone is. Fill the background layer with Black colour.

Type some texts on the document. You can choose any font you want. I use this font from dafont.com. This should automatically create a new layer on top of the background layer.

Position the text to the centre of the canvas. (See below)

Step 2

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

Inner Shadow

Outer Glow

Bevel and Emboss

The effect so far will look like:

Step 3

Now we can add some more crystal feeling into the text. I found applying some leaves texture overlay turn out to be good. Here is the texture I used for this tutorial:

Download the above image, load it into Photoshop and select a portion of it using the rectangle selection marqee tool. Copy and paste it on our document, then resize it to fix the dimension of the text.

See below image for detailed image overlay position:

Change the layer name of this layer to “texture overlay”.

Step 4

On “texture overlay” layer, hit Ctrl + M to bring up the Curve Tool, apply the following settings:

Then hit Ctrl+Alt+Shift+B to bring up the Black and White Tool, apply the following settings:

Then change the layer blending style of this layer to “overlay”.

The effect so far will look like:

Step 5

We can add some mist onto the text to make it look better. To do this, create a new layer on top of the “texture overlay” layer.

Use the Lasso Tool with a 20px feather to select some areas around the text, fill the selection with black and go to Filter > Render > Cloud (Make sure you have Black as background colour, White as foreground colour) and render some cloud.

After rendering cloud, set the layer blending style of “Screen”.

See below for details:

Then use the Level Tool under Image > Adjustment > Level and apply the following settings:

The effect will now look like this:

Ok, that’s it for this tutorial! The rest is left upon your own creativity!

I also made two alternative version with different colour scheme:

Hope you enjoy this short tutorial and if you have any question, just drop me a comment!

Cheers and have a great day!

Like this post? Share it around!

24 Comments

Rolando Says:
YEA THE TUTORIAL IS NICE BUT I CANT FINISH IT I CANT ADD THE MIST EFFECT . YOU SAY TO FILL THE SELECTION BLACK N I DID BUT IT DOES NOT SHOW THE WAY YOURS CAME OUT N PLUS I PUT IT IN SCREEN AND NOTHING I CANT MAKE IT WORKED CAN YOU PLEASE HELP ME ON WHAT MA I DOING WRONG OR WHAT AM I MISSING. CAUSE I DID EXACTLY WHAT IT SAYS AND MINE COMES OUT DIFFERENT N MESS UP IN THE END
James Says:
HI Rolando~
After you fill your selection with black, go to filter > render > cloud (make sure you have background colour set to black, and foreground colour set to white), and render some cloud, then set the blending option to screen. You should have the result shown above.
hope this helps
rubinho Says:
Do you have a workaround for CS2 on “Black and White” tool?
Furtermore – just a great tutorial!
James Says:
Hi rubinho~ I guess you can try to desaturate the image first, then use either curve tool or level tool to adjust the black and white balance.
Hope this helps
Rimvydas Says:
Hi, I have same problem like Rolando, i think u skipped something, and i dont know what :) because i get the clouds but they arent green, they are grey, i tried to colorize them but they look awful the way i do, think smth isn`t right
Ann Says:
I’m stuck on step no. 2. Why the text didn’t turn out green? I have tried doing some remedy on my own like changing the foreground color into green before typing the text but still it doesn’t work. And after I did step no. 3, the leaves image turned out gray upon pasting it over the text.Both turned out with the same color “gray” which is supposedly color “green”. What seems to be the problem James?
James Says:
Hi Ann, did you change the inner glow and outer glow colour to green according to the ones I pointed out in the screenshots in step 2?
If not, try to set the colour by input the colour codes and you should have a green text after that.

Hope this helps
Ann Says:
Yes I followed everything just as you instructed but the result ended up the wrong way. What seems to be the problem here James? Thanks for the response.
James Says:
Hi Ann, Try just do the text layer blending option first, and see if that turns out to be similar as in the tutorial.
And also, there is really no “wrong way”, your result may turn out to be better the one in the tut!
We Buy Ugly Houses Says:
What a great site!Thank you
Kelly Says:
Hey!

First of all, I wanna thank you for this wonderfull tutorial.

I’m stuck at the level tool thing. My curves don’t look like yours and when I fill in the ratio’s you’ve given theres nothing that gets another color. I have the mist layer selected. Did I miss something?

I hope you can help me out.

X. Kelly
huwaw69 Says:
the cloud effect is really great! nice guide man! thanks for the text effects…
Anonymous Says:
Great tutorial! This helped me a lot thanks.
DJnikky Says:
yeah i have the same problem, i cant make the green effect at the last step at that Level thingy
Pang Says:
Wow! what an idea ! What a concept ! Beautiful .. Amazing
Nordlund Says:
thanks !! very helpful post!
streetwear Says:
Thank you very much,your site is perfect
Carlton Says:
I cant get the green effect on the mist either. You really seem to be leaving something out if this many people have the same problem. Please answer how to fix this!
tobias Says:
Hi, I have the same problem lake all the rest, my mist is not green its gray! please help me!
Charlie Says:
hi james, it sure is nice

but im stock at step 4.. i dont know if im going to put the leaf or green picture above the text or…. somthing else.. please help… a guide instruction would be nice