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50 Eye Catching Photoshop Text Effects Tutorials

2010-11-28T20:13:00.000-08:00

Techniques really is a great help to create a stunning photoshop text effects that will give your design a great look. Every now and then there are different designs and styles that are used to create text effects that are being featured to match the latest trend on the web.

In this post, I’ll be featuring 50 most eye-catching photoshop text effects tutorials that you can use for your design, website , hobby or even just a crash course for newbie.

1. 3D texture

2. Create a spectacular flaming meteor effect on text

3. How to create high-quality metal 3D text in Photoshop

4. light and shade

5. Create Destructive Black and White Lettering with a Dramatic Splash Effect

6. Stunning 3D effects in 30 minutes

7. How to Quickly Create a Stylish Retro Text Effect

8. 3D text with a touch of grunge

9. Design soft stylized 3D type

10. Create a 3D flowery text effect

11. Create a dream-like design with 3D typograph

12. Quick and dirty Photoshop text effects from scratch

13. Create a spectacular grass text effect in Photoshop

14. Plastic text

15. Icy cold

16. Paint-splodged text

17. Text in stitches

18. Wet watercolor

19. How to create a gold text effect in Photoshop

20. Colored chrome

21. Reflective liquid type

22. Wood inlay

23. Paper-craft text effect

24. Dramatic text-on-fire effect in Photoshop

25. How to Create a Copper Photoshop Text Effect

26. Vanity License Plate

27. Star Wars text effect

28. Create a trendy typographic poster design

29. Graffiti with Photoshop

30. Super-cool frilly bits typography

31.Typography wallpaper in Photoshop

32. Floral

33. Splattered blood

34.Worn and torn

35. Grunge rubber stamp.

36. Distorted letters

37. Decorative text

38. Rough metal

39. A slick supernatural text effect

40. Smoke type in Photoshop in 10 steps

41. Moonshine effect

42. Transparent glass lettering in Photoshop

43. Scan-line text

44. Create a layered glowing text effect

45. Vibrant pop text effect

46. Slow-shutter effect

47. Colorful retro text

48. Colorful watercolor

49. Furry text

50. Light burst

Hope this text effects tutorials inspire you. If there are text effects tutorials that I’ve missed or your own creations , please post it on your comment and I will be happy to update it.

Create a Harry Potter Style Text Effect in Photoshop

2010-11-24T17:10:00.000-08:00

Create a Harry Potter Style Text Effect in Photoshop: "
Just watched Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. It was an awesome movie and I was inspired to create the typical Harry Potter text effect. This tutorial will show how to use bevel effect and lens blur to create a depth to your artwork.

Preview of Final Image

Create an A4 size document with 300dpi resolution. Set the Background to black color. Download Harry P font from Dafont.com. Type the text (with Harry P font) you want at the center of document in white.

Right-click on the text layer and choose Blending Options. Click on Bevel and Emboss. Follow the settings as shown below.

Click on Gradient Overlay and enter the settings as shown below.

Download any texture from the Krakograff package. Select texture layer, go to Image > Adjustments > Desaturate. Set the Opacity to 60% so you can see and align the texture to cover your text.

Set the texture layer back to 100% Opacity. CTRL+left click on the text layer to load its selection. Select the texture layer and create a Layer Mask with that selection.

Create a new layer above the texture layer and rename it as Glowing Edge. Using the Pen tool, create a path along the bevel edge. After your are done with the path, stroke it with a 3px white brush.

After you are done with all the bevel edges, right-click on the layer and choose Blending Options. Click on Outer Glow, set the color to white and size to 10px. Leave the rest of settings as default.

Right-click on the text layer and choose Blending Options. Click on Outer Glow. Set the mode to Color Dodge and color to white. Leave the rest of settings as default. Repeat the same steps for all the remaining letters.

Create a new layer below the text layer and rename it as Light Burst. Using the Brush tool in Soft Brush mode and size 1300px, paint a white dot like I did below.

Change the Blend Mode of this layer to Dissolve. Create a new layer above Light Burst layer and merge them together. This step is to preserve the dissolve effect from the blending mode.

Go to Filter > Blur > Radial Blur. Set the mode to Zoom and value to 100%. Repeat the filter again so the burst look smoother.

Create a new layer above the texture layer. Using the same Brush tool in Soft Brush mode but size at 200px, paint a small dot at the center of the light burst.

Download Forest of Mystery from ShutterStock. Place the forest image the way shown below.

Select the forest layer and enter Quick Mask mode. Make a black-white gradient starting from the bottom. Exit the Quick Mask mode to load its selection.

Go to Filter > Blur > Lens Blur. Enter the settings as shown below.

Create a new Hue/Saturation Adjustment Layer. Enter the settings below.

Create a new Levels Adjustment Layer. Enter the settings below.

Download the Aurora Abstract Brush from QBrushes. With the downloaded brush, add some white smoke at the back of the texts.

And we are done! I hope you find this tutorial useful. Thanks for reading.

Free Camouflage Patterns for Illustrator & Photoshop

2010-11-21T07:48:00.000-08:00

Free Camouflage Patterns for Illustrator & Photoshop: "

Download this pack of military camouflage patterns to create infinitely repeating camo backgrounds for your designs. Each camouflage pattern is available in vector format so it can be used at any size imaginable, as well as a JPEG format for everyday use in Photoshop.

Most of the camo patterns I found on the web either didn’t repeat as a tileable pattern, or were just made of unrealistic blobs, so I decided to have a go at creating my own camo pattern files and share them with you all. These camo swatches are based on the popular patterns used by the US military during the 80s and 90s, as well as the more modern digital type pattern currently in use today.

Each file comes in vector and raster format. To use in Adobe Illustrator, just drag the graphic into the swatches palette, then add this swatch as a fill to any object. To use the JPEG files in Photoshop, go to Edit > Define Pattern. This pattern can then be used along with the fill tool or the layer style options, such as Pattern Overlay.

Woodland camouflage pattern

Desert camouflage pattern

Urban camouflage pattern

Digital camouflage pattern

Download them all!

Want the whole lot? Download the Zip file to grab JPEG and vector variations of each camo pattern.

Download the camo patterns package

How to Visualize a Realistic Car Wrap - (by @baekdal)

2010-11-21T07:47:00.000-08:00

How to Visualize a Realistic Car Wrap - (by @baekdal): "

Back in 2005, I wrote an article on how to visualize realistic car wraps. The article turned out to be one of my most popular articles of all time. Due to its popularity, I continue to receive questions from readers wanting me to clarify how it is done.

So here it is, back due to popular demand. The video tutorial on How to visualize realistic looking car wraps

Note: Watch it in HD and Download the template PSD file.

Note: Ford Taurus 2011 via Ford, graphics and image via Google images - for illustration purposes only.

How to wrap a car?

Another question I get is how to add the graphic to your car? That is a bit more complicated. The tutorial only helps you visualize a wrap you still have to create it. You have to create a wrap template, print it, and apply it to your car.

Here is a short video demonstrating how that is done:

More wraps:

Note: Creating car wraps was something I used to do on a freelance basis 4-8 years ago. It is not really something I do anymore. Call it an occasional hobby.

PODCAST: A-HAA Podcast 15- Stephen Worth on the Untold History of Animation

2010-11-21T07:46:00.000-08:00

PODCAST: A-HAA Podcast 15- Stephen Worth on the Untold History of Animation: "A-HAA Podcast
Episode 015

43 min / 16.5 MB / AAC
10.09.10 / RSS Feed
MP3 Version
INDEX
00:00:00 Opening with Danny and Michael
00:01:12 Interview with Stephen Worth (Part One)
00:39:58 News and with Michael and Danny
It’s been too long since I mirrored the great work Michael Woodside and Danny Young have been doing on the A-HAA Podcast. [...]"

Visual Effects: 100 Years of Inspiration

2010-11-21T07:28:00.000-08:00

Visual Effects: 100 Years of Inspiration: "

A nice video showing off the following movies :

1900 – The Enchanted Drawing

1903 – The Great Train Robbery

1923 – The Ten Commandments (Silent)

1927 – Sunrise

1933 – King Kong

1939 – The Wizard of Oz

1940 – The Thief of Bagdad

1954 – 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea

1956 – Forbidden Planet

1963 – Jason and the Argonauts

1964 – Mary Poppins

1977 – Star Wars

1982 – Tron

1985 – Back to the Future

1988 – Who Framed Roger Rabbit

1989 – The Abyss

1991 – Terminator 2: Judgement Day

1992 – The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles

1993 – Jurassic Park

2004 – Spider-Man 2

2005 – King Kong

2006 – Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest

2007 – Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End

2007 – The Golden Compass

2008 – The Spiderwick Chronicles

2008 – The Curious Case of Benjamin Button

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Blender 2.5 Tour (via blenderlabrat) – UPDATED

2010-11-21T07:25:00.000-08:00

Blender 2.5 Tour (via blenderlabrat) – UPDATED: "

You can now find 3 new videos on blenderlabrat’s blog about his Blender 2.5 Tour.

There as been a lot of changes since his first tour of 2.5 and I think it’s worth taking a look at this new tour now because the new version of Blender is getting closer and closer to its final look and I think that’s a good starting point for people to have a real and nice sneak peak of what it’s going to be.

The 1rst part covers (user interface) :

Context! what it is and how to understand it

UI manipulation, split, join, rip, swap areas

3dview tools pane and repeat last operator

threading, constant responsive UI

new button types

misc stuff, like quickly themes colors and such

http://blenderlabrat.blogspot.com/2009/10/25-tour-9-part-1.html

The 2nd part covers (animation) :

Basic Keyframing

Keying sets

F-curve basics

Modifiers

Drivers ( didn’t want to work but i showed the procedure)

Quat V Eulars

Non-Linear Animation Editor

http://blenderlabrat.blogspot.com/2009/10/25-tour-9-part-2.html

The 3rd part covers (materials/shading) :

Tour of new buttons layout and how to use it

Multiple material

Textures

New bump mapping and colour managment

Volumetrics

Volumetric Textures

http://blenderlabrat.blogspot.com/2009/10/25-tour-9-part-3-materialsshading.html

The 4th part covers (particles & simulations) :

where things are now

new cache system

effectors

Smoke

point density texture

http://blenderlabrat.blogspot.com/2009/10/25-tour-9-part-4-particles-and.html

The 5th part covers (Cache Editing) :

how does simulations are cached on Harddrive for realtime playback

http://blenderlabrat.blogspot.com/2009/10/25-tour-9-part5-cache-editing.html

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Adobe Flash on Iphone – Flash Pro cs5 can compile flash movie for Iphone !

2010-11-21T07:17:00.000-08:00

Adobe Flash on Iphone – Flash Pro cs5 can compile flash movie for Iphone !: "

Finally it was about time!!!! now I’m might get an iphone !

Adobe now makes it possible to create applications for the Apple iPhone using the Adobe Flash Platform. You heard right: We’re really excited to bring this new capability to Flash designers and developers—the ability to target the iPhone with ActionScript 3 projects. You will be able to test this functionality in the forthcoming beta release of Adobe Flash Professional CS5 on Adobe Labs.

via Developping for the Iphone with Adobe Flash

Flash Professional CS5 will enable you to build applications for iPhone and iPod touch using ActionScript 3. These applications can be delivered to iPhone and iPod touch users through the Apple App Store.*

Demonstration Video

Example Applications

Additional Resources

via Adobe Labs – Adobe Flash Professional CS5: Applications for iPhone.

***

Sign Up for Beta here : https://www.adobe.com/cfusion/mmform/index.cfm?name=fpcs5_notify

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VFX tracking marker to download and print

2010-11-21T07:14:00.000-08:00

VFX tracking marker to download and print: "

vfx tracking marker closeup / now you can download /IMG_0958, originally uploaded by alba.

Thanks to Eric Alba, he shared a really nice Tracking Marker on his Flickr page. It’s working very well !

Experimental Animation based on sound with After Effects via AETuts+ (Audio Reactant Time Remapping)

2010-11-21T07:09:00.000-08:00

Experimental Animation based on sound with After Effects via AETuts+ (Audio Reactant Time Remapping): "

My tutorial for AETuts+ is finally out !!

It covers Time Remapping, Waveform to keyframe conversion, expression, … I got really inspired by watching all those reels from motion designer or filmmaker with music most of the time from Hecq. I was wondering how they did their editing and cuts, so I came up with this idea. I don’t know if it’s the way they did it, but this is my approach.

Hope you like it !!!

Link : Audio Reactant Time Remapping Tutorial at AETuts+

Pixel Bender : ft-Ppass2Matte for After Effects

2010-11-21T06:39:00.000-08:00

Pixel Bender : ft-Ppass2Matte for After Effects: "

Introduction

I believe this filter is the only one handling Position pass in After Effect. By rendering an Object P Pass, you will be able to create 3D mask which stick on your objects.

This techniques comes from several Nuke scripts. Look at the following videos :

Download & Sources

Pixel Bender shader : ft-Ppass2Matte

How to install it ?

Just copy the .pbk file into your “Support Files” folder in your AE install directory

Sintel - Third Open Movie by Blender Foundation

2010-11-21T06:33:00.000-08:00

The Best WordPress Themes Free 2010

2010-11-20T14:01:00.000-08:00

The Best WordPress Themes Free 2010: "

At the end of 2009, we published a series of posts highlighting the best freebies and resources from that year. It turned out to be a great way to show our readers what they may have missed, and to give some recognition to the people that worked very hard at producing such amazing stuff. It’s difficult to believe that another year is drawing to a close, but here we are at the end of 2010. This means it’s time for another “Best Of” series. So to kick it off, we’ve rounded up the best free WordPress themes of 2010. These are in no particular order. They’re simply the ones we felt stood out from the rest this year in terms of design quality and features.

Shaken Grid

This theme is perfect for you if you’re in need of a gallery/portfolio website or if you just want a website with a unique grid layout that not many websites have taken full advantage of yet. “Shaken Grid” uses the jQuery Masonry plugin which “arranges elements vertically then horizontally according to a grid.”

Imbalance

Imbalance is a very user friendly, jQuery powered theme which looks really well under any browser and OS. Perfectly fits for your blog, online magazine or portfolio websites.

Boldy – download

Boldy is a high-quality theme and features an image slider predominantly on the homepage.

Mansion

Mansion is a free photoblogger’s theme for WordPress. It features a flexible-width thumbnail grid for both images and photo journal entries. Mansion is perfect for those who want to primarily showcase their photographs and occasionally write blog posts.

Simplefolio

SimpleFolio is a portfolio theme that includes a blog and a very extensive option page that allows you to exclude all your portfolio items from the blog page. It also includes a front page slider.

Blissful Blog

The Blissful Blog is a WordPress 3.0 theme for the wedding industry. It features a traditional blog layout with several added features that take advantage of the latest WordPress 3.0 platform.

Simplo – download

Simplo, as its name implies, is a simplistic twist on our premium themes by offering a simplified look and feel. Simplo works straight “out of the box” and features six color options configurable within the theme’s options page.

Structure

Structure is designed to adopt the style of the content added. It features 2 color options — a white version and a black version.

AutoFocus+

AutoFocus+ is a clean and simple WordPress theme developed for photographers looking to showcase their work.

Koi

Koi is an artistic theme and is suitable for most personal blogs. Koi is one of the top used themes on WordPress.com. The theme supports the WordPress 3.0 new features such as custom menus and child themes but is still backwards compitable with older versions of WordPress.

Skeptical

Skeptical’s layout is very flexible in the sense that you can display “related posts” next to your latest posts on the home page, OR have a completely widgetized sidebar. Not only that, you can also add your Flickr stream to the footer region and showcase three noteworthy blog posts tagged with a specific tag that you declare in the theme options.

Peacekeeper

Peacekeeper is the gamer niche wordpress theme from web2feel.com. This is a stylish theme with a 3D flash image slider, Twitter, Banner ads, Adsense, etc.

Adobe Photoshop - How to create Christmas background with snowflakes and stars

2010-11-20T13:57:00.000-08:00

Adobe Photoshop - How to create Christmas background with snowflakes and stars: " In this tutorial, you will learn how to use brushes and custom shapes in Photoshop CS5 to create Christmas illustration in a few simple steps. It’s a simple trick to apply, but very useful. Read on to learn more."

The Final Destination

2010-11-20T13:55:00.000-08:00

The Final Destination: "

Fast-paced, violent, loud, in-your-face and brilliantly executed. That just about sums up PIC's opening title sequence for The Final Destination. The titles form the perfect introduction to this fourth installment of the successful horror movie series. We discussed the 'Making Of' in an email interview with art director Jarik van Sluijs and executive producer Pamela Green of the Hollywood 'desi...

18 Impressive Freelancer Demo Reels

2010-11-20T13:51:00.000-08:00

18 Impressive Freelancer Demo Reels: "

Were going to take a look today at some really impressive work by some not-so-well-known freelancers in our business. People just like these guys are the ones that keep our business fresh and keep setting the bar higher and higher for people like you and me, so check em out! If you want to be featured sometime… link yourself up in the comments!

Francios Tarlier

Kamal Tahtah

Yuri Kneppers

Tim Howe

Mancel Lindsey

Michael Cardwell

Chris Beaudoin

Jonathan Cohen

Olliver Harris

Rick Thompson

Diana Paez

Bill Dwyer

Todd Blankenship

Toddy Ivon Niel

Christopher San Agustin

Christian Schmid

Richard Lord

Richard Dufty

If you enjoyed this post, please give it a vote on Digg or a stumble to say thanks!

Pucker Up With A “Rocky Horror” Lips Rig

2010-11-20T13:50:00.000-08:00

Pucker Up With A “Rocky Horror” Lips Rig: "

Inspired by the opening sequence of one of my favorite cult movies of all times – “The Rocky Horror Picture Show“, I decided to share with you a great technique of recreating that effect. The original footage was a real person singing, so here I will give you a quick walkthrough to help you easily rig lips for a very precise lips sinking.

Tutorial

Download Tutorial .mp4

File size 21.9MB

Resources

Download the Lips Picture here.

Download the Font here.

Make a lower third in After Effects

2010-11-20T13:48:00.000-08:00

Make a lower third in After Effects: "

Steve Holmes of Energi Design has just released a new tutorial on how to create a lower third in After Effects. Though this 30-minute video is also one big long commercial for Artbeats stock footage, you can, of course, use your own. If making lower thirds isn’t on your to do list, you’d still get to get A LOT out of this video. Steve masterly uses such effects as CC Toner, Shift Channels and Transform. And I’ve never seen anyone make the Glow effect work so well as in this tutorial. You’ll also get tons of tips on masks, time stretch and turning a solid into an adjustment layer. Watch and/or download it here.

New After Effects tutorials for beginners

2010-11-20T13:47:00.000-08:00

New After Effects tutorials for beginners: "

New to After Effects? Having trouble finding simpler tutorials which cover the basics? Adobe TV has a 7-part series titled Classroom: Basic Compositing and Animation in After Effects CS5. With this free tutorial course you’ll learn animation and compositing basics, keyframes, masking, parenting and more. And just in case a hole in the space/time continuum has somehow prevented you from being aware of Video Copilot, there’s a free ten-part series there called After Effects Basic Training.

Amazing Free Hi-Res Textures

2010-11-20T13:46:00.000-08:00

Amazing Free Hi-Res Textures: "

Today, I bring you an amazing packs of textures, the best way to start the weekend. Enjoy! (via Blog.CGSutra)

Fur Free Textures

50 Free Fabric Textures

25 Rust Textures

You can Follow me on Twitter or visit my website Cicerone Blog

Victor Hernandez

5 free After Effects filters from Idustrial Revolution

2010-11-20T13:45:00.000-08:00

5 free After Effects filters from Idustrial Revolution: "

Users of Idustrial Revolution‘s FxFactory can download FreebiePack1 Version 1.5. The pack comes with 5 free filters for After Effects, Motion or Final Cut.

Probably the most interesting is the World effect. Usually to generate an Earth in After Effects you’d swipe some spherical maps from the NASA website and apply CC Sphere. With World you need only apply the effect. Instantly your comp gets populated with a nice looking Planet Earth. The available parameters are outstanding. You have full world transform controls (won’t work with AE cameras). You can also set the direction of the light and shading. You can even affect the visibility and offset of the city lights. Very nice.

The Rack Focus effect lets you blur from one layer to the other, no AE camera or DOF required. And Opposites looks like it’s a lot of fun. It takes two layers and the transformations applied to one get inverted for the other for a kinda of seesaw effect.

Download the pack here. This link will also let you install FxFactory if you haven’t got it already. Click here to view a tutorial covering the five free plugins.

Compositing a green screen actor in a 2.5D world with stock elements, sfx and 3D text

2010-11-20T13:43:00.000-08:00

Compositing a green screen actor in a 2.5D world with stock elements, sfx and 3D text: "

From Digital Juice:

“Intermediate After Effects Training Using Motion Designer’s Toolkit 4, Compositor’s Toolkit & Digital Juice Sound FX Description: In this tutorial, Jon Walker shows you how to add a creative twist to any green screen footage using After Effects and a variety of elements from three different Digital Juice libraries. In this first part, he details how to set up the scene with your footage, how to add the animated MDT filigree elements and how to treat your text elements so you get a proper 3D look. In this second part, he adds animation to the text, camera moves for the scene as a whole, and special effects from the CTK library to make the animated text more realistic. He also completes the realism of the segment with sound effects form the DJ Sound FX Library.”

Although this 2-part tutorial uses stock elements from Digital Juice’s Motion Designer kits, it’s still applicable with anything you’ve got. Nothing groundbreaking here, but there are lots of nice tips along the way.

Watch Part One

Watch Part Two

54 Free Skulls, anyone?

2010-11-20T13:42:00.000-08:00

54 Free Skulls, anyone?: "

I thought this one was a bit odd but what the hell, Halloween is on its way. Media Militia is giving away a package of 54 Free Human Skull images. Feel free to use them in any project, even commercial ones. What’s particularly handy about this collection is that they come at all angles so you can find just the right look to integrate into your comp. They’re pretty high res so you can zoom in pretty close. Or how ’bout setting them up as sprites to use with Particular?

Free high resolution Rust textures

2010-11-20T13:41:00.000-08:00

Free high resolution Rust textures: "

MediaMilitia.com has an outstanding rust texture pack aptly named Rust V.01 from Aqueous Sun. They’re huge and they’re gorgeous. The pack comes with 28 textures around about 4288px by 2848px. Most of them are yellow but you can change that quickly enough with a spin of the hue wheel. When I first discovered these images about a week ago I planning to make a sample video demonstrating what you could do with textures in our favorite program, and it evolved into a promo for the pack itself.

You can download these free textures here. And while you’re there take a look at the site’s other offerings. There’s a ton up for grabs!

Sound design for motion graphics

2010-11-20T13:39:00.001-08:00

Sound design for motion graphics: "

“… The right music and the right sound effects in the right places.”

The above quote just about sums up the usefulness of this new tutorial by Jeff Earley for Digital Juice. Jeff takes a flattened render of a voiceless After Effects promo into Premiere Pro and adds layer after layer of sound and music… in just the right places. He gives tons of great tips on general sound design along the way. He makes heavy use of Digital Juice products and software, but again, these tips work with any tools and assets you have. You’ll learn:

how to combine synthesized and practical clips together for new sounds with unique personalities

combining whooshes and impacts

how to align the peak of a whoosh with the animation

how to make sure your sounds don’t bump into each other

and a lot more

I found it particularly fascinating to hear what Jeff had to say about each sound while he was auditioning them. All in all, nice to see a tutorial on sound design for a change, especially since sound is such a vital aspect of motion graphics design. And many of us could probably do with a little guidance in the area.

Watch the tutorial here.

Have you seen any tutorials like this one? Share with us and post them in the comments!

— John Stanowski