Design a Zebra-Skinned Crimson Text Effect in Photoshop

In this tutorial, I will show you the steps I took to create this Zebra Patterned Crimson Text Effect in Photoshop. This is an intermediate level tutorial and some steps can be tricky, but why not have a go?

The PSD file of this tutorial is available via the PSD Vault VIP members area.

What I would like to show you in this tutorial in how you can combine the pattern clone stamp with work path to render special effects for your text, and how you can create realistic light and shadow for your environment.

Here is a preview of the final effect I have for this tutorial: (click to enlarge)

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

Font

Step 1

Creata a new document sized 1300px * 650px. Create a new layer called “floor” and select the lower portion of the canvas as shown below:

Right-click inside the selection and choose “Fill”:

Select the following tile pattern from the “Pattern” category:

Drop the layer opacity to around 40%:

Then perspective the layer as shown below:

add the following layer mask to this floor layer:

and you will have the following effect:

Step 2

Use the font we donwloaded, type some text onto the canvas as shown below:

Apply the following Drop Shadow blending option to this text layer:

Now in order to make a smooth transition from the text layer to the floor layer, as the following layer mask to the text layer: (with Gradient Fill tool)

Now let’s create the shadow for the text. Firstly load the selection of the text layer by Ctrl + Left-click the thumbnail image on the layer palette, then create a new layer called “shadow” under the text layer, maintain the selection and fill it with black colour, flip it vertically and use the free-transform tool to perspective as shown below:

Add the following layer mask to this shadow layer:

and you will have the following effect:

Step 3

Create a new layer on top of the text layer called “zebra texture”. Load the text layer selection and right-click on it, choose “make work path” option:

Grab the Pattern Stamp Tool from the toolbox:

Choose the Zebra texture from the dropdown window:

Set tolerance to 2.0 pixels:

Choose the Pen Tool, then right-click on the path and choose “Stroke Path”:

Stroke the path with Pattern Stamp we just chose:

and you will have the following effect:

Change the layer blending mode to be “overlay” for this zebra texture layer, you will have the following effect:

Step 4

Now create a new layer under the “shadow” layer called “back light”. Grab the Lasso Tool with a 50px feather setting to draw a selection, then render some cloud inside it:

Hit Ctrl + L to bring up the Levels adjustment tool and apply the following settings:

Use the free transform tool to reduce the size of the cloud, position it behind the text:

Duplicate this light layer a few more times, put them around the text as shown below: (reduce their layer opacity to around 20-30%)

Add the following two adjustment layers to the top of all previous layers:

Curves

Levels

and you will have the following effect:

Go back to the text layer, change the text colour to be black, and you will have the following effect:

Step 5

Now we’re almost done. Flatten the image and duplicate the background layer once, apply the following Reduce Noise filter settings to the duplicated layer: (we don’t want this text effect to be sharp)

I decided to add a line a smaller text in the far distant to make a transition effect for the main text. So I duplicate the background layer again, and apply the following Motion blur filter to the duplicated layer:

Then resize this layer to a smaller scale, then move it up to the position as shown below:

Add the following layer mask to this layer:  (use Gradient Tool)

Then reduce the layer opacity to around 30%, you will have the following effect:  (a barely visible, samll text in the far distance)

I added the following two image adjustment layers for final touchups:

Curves

Color Balance

Mask on Colour Balance layer: (for adding image depth)

and here is the final effect I have for this tutorial:

Alternative Version (with more red colour + a bit of Motion Blur in it)

That’s for this tutorial! Hope you enjoy it and find it useful. If you have any question, just drop me a comment below. Have a nice day!