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ByJames Qu
January 4, 2009

Translucent Text Effect with Sky and Cloud

In this tutorial, I will show the processes involved in making this shining and refreshing transparent text effect with sky and cloud textures. We had some really interesting clouds on the sky yesterday and that’s where I’ve got the inspiration from :) The techniques included in this tutorial are layer styles, gradient fills, clone stamp tools, blur filters and various image adjustment and transformation tools. It’s a simple tutorial so have a go!

In this tutorial, I will show the processes involved in making this shining and refreshing transparent text effect with sky and cloud textures.  We had some really interesting clouds on the sky yesterday and that’s where I’ve got the inspiration from :)

The techniques included in this tutorial are layer styles, gradient fills, clone stamp tools, blur filters and various image adjustment and transformation tools. It’s a simple tutorial so have a go!

Here is a preview of the final result:

Ok let’s get started!

Step 1

Create a new document sized 800px * 800px. On the background layer, use the Gradient Fill tool to create some irregular lighting as shown below:

Step 2

On the background layer, type some texts onto it (Make sure you choose a bold font as we need to make room for transparency, I used this font from fontspace.com).

Position the text as shown below:

Step 3

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

Drop Shadow

Inner Shadow

Inner Glow

Bevel and Emboss

Contour

Gradient Overlay

Stroke

The effect so far will look like this:

Step 4

Now we’re onto apply some nice cloudy texture onto the text. Download a copy of this image (The one on the left) from CG Texture and select a nice portion of it as shown below:

Copy and paste the selected portion onto our text and name this layer as “cloud”.

Use the Eraser Tool (with a big, soft and round brush, set opacity and flow to 60%) to gently erase the outside of the cloud:

Step 5

Still on the “Cloud” layer, use the Clone Stamp Tool (again with a big, soft and round brush setting) and clone the cloud so it covers all of our texts:

Then hit Ctrl + M and apply the following Curve settings:

Change the blending mode of this layer to “Overlay” and you will have the following effect:

Step 6

Duplicate the “Cloud” layer once, then apply the following Black and White adjustments:

This create some colour depth for the image and you will have the following effect:

Optionally, you can duplicate the “Cloud” layer again and this will add some more colour to the image:

Step 7

Rasterize the text layer and do a multi-select for all the layers created, distort the image until you reach the effect shown below:

Then we can add some light over the text. To do this, create a new layer called “light” and select a rectangle portion just above the text, fill the selection with White colour and render some fiber:

Then de-select the selection, apply the following motion blur settings:

Then hit Ctrl + L and apply the following Levels adjustment settings:

To make the light a bit soft, apply the following gaussian blur settings:

After that, use the Eraser Tool to get rid of the unnecessary bits of the light, and free-transform (or distort, rotate, perspective) it until reaching desired effect:

Ok that’s it for this tutorial, the rest is left your own creativity. You can duplicate the cloud layer a few times, or add some extra lighting to the text. Totally up to you.

Here is my final image for this tutorial:

Hope you enjoy it and find it useful and inspirational! If you have any question, just drop me a comment.

Have a nice day!

ByJames Qu
Updated

  4. Hi that guy art, sorry mate about wasting your time, but if you could point out what “a hole bit” refers to, perhaps I could patch that hole up for you.

  7. You did a great job!
    I have been trying out any options available but I can’t seem do that effect for step no. 7. Please tell me in details how to do it.Can’t wait for your answer.Thanks a great deal.

  9. Hi Ann, you need to use the free transformation tool (ctrl + T) and distort the text layer. It’s a bit tricky cos you need to think about 3D shape.

    And to all people asking the same question, I will upload a video to show how to transform the text very soon. Hopefully that will help

  10. hey

    i’m getting a nice “Forbidden” message when I try to dl the cloud image.

    any thoughts? great tutorial btw!!

  14. Heya dude, awesome tutorial.. I’m a but stuck though. (I’m pretty new, but I know the basics I guess.) On step 7, you write: Rasterize the text layer and do a multi-select for all the layers created, distort the image until you reach the effect shown below:

    – I’m stuck at “Do a multi-select for all the layers created, distorth the image until you reach the effect shown below.” – How?

    Regards
    Escapade

  18. Nice tutorial, but I can’t get the step 7 too work. I made the white rectangle above the text, but when I try too render fibers, all i get is the same white square. What am I doing wrong?

  24. great tut, got up to step 5 and stuck on 6th, cant find the Black and White adjustments in the adjustments selections. Where would i find it. Im using CS 2 would i even have this option on there?
    please and thanks.

  25. Hi Dima, yeah cs2 doesn’t have black and white tool, but i think you can try channel mixer instead? make sure to tick “monochrome” option
    hope this helps :)

  28. @Chinmay: black and white tool is only available to CS3 or higher. You can try use channel mixer instead.

  34. HI ty, did you set the background colour as black and foreground colour as white when you render the fiber?

  53. hey can you go more indepth on how you got the background to look like that i used the gradiant fill tool but cant figure out how you got the background to look like that

  83. Hey, I was having problems with the 7th step as well, but I looked around and found a good sight that taught what to do.

  85. Hi, me again. I am trying to get the link to the clouds, and it is directing me to the same music video on You Tube. If you could provide the correct link, that would be wonderful. Thanks!

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