Photoshop Tutorials,the free resource for Photoshop Users
home > photoshop_Tutorial > text effects > Quick Photoshop Tip: How to Make 3D Text
Quick Photoshop Tip: How to Make 3D Text
    Views:11718    Submitted:2/13/2008 8:51:29 PM    Author: Dieter Vander Velpen
Get A FREE Cruise Today At WinYourCruise.com!

Recently, I made this poster for a small Belgian music festival.

image 1

For the "Jachtival" type, I used a simple but effective technique to simulate 3D-text, which I'll explain to you because it's fast and I use it for a lot of things (not only for text, it works with boxes as well).

Read on:

1. Write your text (T). I choose the "AllStar" font, a free download on DaFont.com, because you can see through it, which makes for a nice effect. The color you start with, is not the final color of your text, but instead the color of the 3D-part, the depth actually. Therefore, I took gray as color.

image 2

2. Now, click edit>transform>skew and drag the right part up, until you get something like this.

image 3

3. Hold "alt" and hit the "right" and then "down" arrow of your keyboard. Keep holding alt and repeat the right-down part many times, while you see the 3D-effect getting shape. By holding the alt-key, Photoshop copies the layer and then you drag it one pixel to the right and one pixel down.

image 4

4. To give your text the desired color, change only the text color of the upper layer.

image 5

5. I finished the effect by copying the white text layer, flipping it vertical (edit>transform>flip vertical), then rasterizing it with layer>rasterize>type and then edit>transform>distort and dragging the corners into a realistic looking position.

image 6

Finished result:

Quick Photoshop Tip: How to Make 3D Text Tutorial: Final Result (Click to enlarge)
Click to enlarge

Have fun!