Design a Shattered, Scrappy Metal Text Effect in Photoshop

In this tutorial, I will show you the steps I took to Design a Shattered, Scrappy Metal Text Effect in Photoshop. You will learn how you utilise a range of selection and transformation techniques to manipulate textures in order to form certain effect. Have a try!

This is an intermediate to advance level Photoshop tutorial. If you’re having difficulty with the steps in this tutorial, I suggest you go to the basic section of PSD Vault and practice those tutorials first, then come back and do this one.

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

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Ok Let’s get started!

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

Metal Texture

Step 1

Create a new document with black background (size doesn’t really matter for this tutorial, I used 1200px * 700px). Create a new layer on top of the background layer and set the opacity to around 20%, render some cloud with the cloud filter on it:

Duplicate this cloud layer once, compress it down then rotate it as shown below with the free transform tool:

We will use this new cloud layer as a guide for our text base – so increase the opacity to around 30% for it. And you will have the following effect:

Step 2

Load the metal texture image into Photoshop, use the quick selection tool to select a random piece of the texture:

Copy and paste the selection into our document, rotate it a bit as shown below:

Grab a soft eraser with the opacity and flow set to both around 40%, gently erase the edges of the metal texture to give it a little more depth.

Note: The following 3 screenshots indicate the Top Left, Center, and Bottom Right area of the metal texture.

Top Left Portion:

Center Portion:

Bottom Right Corner:

You will have the following similar effect as a result:

Step 3

Now let’s make a particle brush with this metal stock image. If you have followed psdvault.com for a while, you will know that I love making those kind of brush for all sorts of effect :)

So let’s go to the metal image, use the quick selection tool to select a few random pieces from the image, as shown below:

Double click the background layer to unlock it:

Then go to Edit > Define Brush Preset to create a new brush preset:

Once you defined a new brush set, press F5 and bring up the brush windows, apply the following settings:

Shape Dynamics

Scattering

Make sure you tick the “Protect Texture” option on the brush window.

Use this brush as an eraser, reduce the tip size to a small scale, erase the following areas of the metal texture on our document:

Center

Bottom Right

Top Left

Then add the following two adjustment layers as clipping mask to the metal texture layer:

Levels

Black and White

Layer mask on the Black and White adjustment layer:

and you will have the following effect so far:

You can use this particle brush to paint around the following areas for the shatter effect:

Hint: make sure you reduce the brush tip size to a smaller scale, and set the brush flow and opacity to around 50%, DO NOT paint too much particles.

Step 4

Now let’s move to the text part. Type a letter onto the canvas as shown below: (Font choice doesn’t matter here, we only use this as a guide for our texture)

Again we select a piece of metal texture with the Quick Selection Tool:

Copy and paste the selection onto our document, resize and fit it to our letter:

Repeat the steps above and apply more metal texture to the letter:

When you’re happy with the shape, hide the original white text, and merge those layers and use a soft erase to remove the edges of the letter:

Make sure you erase the bottom of the letter as well, so it blends into the base:

Add the following 3 adjustment layers as clipping mask to the letter texture:

Levels

Black and White

Layer mask on Black and White adjustment layer:

Curves

Use the particle brush we created in previous step, paint some shattered pieces around the letter:

Here is the effect so far:

Step 5

We’re almost done! For some final retouches, I smart sharpen the image a bit after flattening the layers:

I also added some more particles around the base texture:

Plus a few more spot lights around the letter:

You can also adjust the contrast a bit with a brightness and contrast adjustment layer, and here is the final effect I have for this tutorial:(click to enlarge)

You can choose your own color scheme and experiment with the result – I used a dark red kind of effect.

That’s it for this tutorial! Hope you enjoy this tutorial and find it useful! Till next time, have a great day!