2torial Blog|photoshop tutorials, website design tutorials and graphic design articles and tutorials

This is a two part tutorial. First we’ll make some alien looking text in photoshop then in part 2 we’ll import it into After Effects and apply an expression to make it look similar to jello when it drops. If your not interested in making the text effect, just move on to part 2 (see the end of part 2 for the final).

Part one – the text effect:

Open a new document in photoshop with a size of 720×480 and make the background black.  Type in your text and make it white for now. Name the new text layer “alien text” in the layers palette, .

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Import the alien.psd we made in part 1 into After Effects as a composition.  Double click on the alien comp and it will open up a new timeline with all of the Photoshop layers visible.

Go to Composition>Composition Settings and make the duration of the comp 5 seconds. In the timeline select the two text layers and hit A on your keyboard to expose the anchor property. Adjust the values so the anchor point is at the bottom of the text, then you’ll have to re-position the text back to the middle and move it just below center. To prevent the text layer from jiggling all the way down, we’ll split the layer in two and add the expression at the split (time of impact when the text drops).  Move the timeline indicator to 0;00;00;08 , Lock Layer 1 and select the two text layers then to go edit>split layer.

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Check out this great text effect tutorial for Photoshop over at Flash Game Design on how to make metal text wrapped in a chain.  Find the tutorial here: Chained text

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Here’s an nice text effect using the layer mask in Photoshop to turn an image into text background.  This effect is very easy to do and works great on logos, web page headers or print ads.

If your following along with me, download the music background I’m using here: Sheet Music

Here’s the final:

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Here is a simple yet effective image effect that is often used in print ads. An image’s main object extends out into the white area so it appears as if it is popping out of the picture and the ad text is placed in the white section. Obviously this effect can be used with almost any object in a picture but seems to work best on less “busy” images with one or two objects that really stand out. I’m going to use a hot air balloon for this tutorial. If you want to follow along with me, you can download the image I’m using here: Hot air balloon.

Here’s the final:

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In this tutorial, we’ll make a cool chrome text effect in Photoshop then import the .psd into After Effects as a composition and customize the built-in Shatter effect to make the text appear as if its crumbling apart. A very cool effect that can be used on pictures and video as well.

Here’s the final:

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Using a displacement map in Photoshop can create some really cool effects. Today, we’ll use a displacement map to make some text appear as if it is painted onto wood. There are many different surfaces you can use for this. Brick works well also. With a quick Google search you can find many different textures and surfaces to use. If you prefer to use the wood background that I’m using, I’ve made it available here.

Let’s start by importing our wood image into Photoshop. Double click on the background layer in the layers palette and turn the background into a layer and name it wood.

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In this Photoshop tutorial I’ll create a Vista style navigation bar for use in your website. We’re going to use a two tone gradient to simulate the shiny gloss effect so download this useful set of Web 2.0 Gradients and place the file in your photoshop/presets/Gradients folder and then start up Photoshop.

In Photoshop create a new file with a dimension of 800×300 and just make the background white for now.

Create a new layer in the layer palette and name this layer menu background. With the new layer selected, take the Rectangular Marquee tool and create a box along the bottom and the length of the document at about 40px high. Now either use the paint bucket to fill it black or go to edit – fill and fill the selection with black.

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