Simple Grafix

Artistic Text Effects:
This unique collection of Photoshop plug-ins has all that you may need to start creating fantastic graphically rich artwork right away. Among the professional effects included in this plug-in package are: Aqua, Snow, Drop, Ice, Chrome, Metal, Crude Metal, Plastic, Gel, Smoke and Cotton. Each effect is built on high precision mathematical model ensuring you get the greatest level of quality when applying effects.

Download it HERE

I have seen this question asked over and over. Bottom line up front is if you are working with artwork that has a lot of colors you don’t want to lose stick with png, if you are dealing with photos jpeg is the way to go. If you want your page to load faster and don’t care if you lose some quality compress a jpeg or a gif and you’ll be fine.

Continue reading “What is the difference between JPEG, GIF and PNG?” »

Written by Ross

Retro text like this looks great but isn’t easy to create in Photoshop alone so here we use a mix of Photoshop and Illustrator, rastor and vector to create some unique text. The second part of this tutorial explains video layers, something which is relatively new to most people. The final result will be an animated image that could be used for a web header.

In this Adobe Photoshop tutorial we will make a cool looking pink text effect.

I actually came up with this effect by accident when playing around with photoshop (like I do with most stuff these days).

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Hi there guys. I have prepared a new tutorial. In this tutorial we will be learning some more photomanipulation but this time different than the first one I did.

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In this tutorial we will be working on a Star Wars text effect.

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How to create a Blood Text Effect

By Gigolo

First we will start out with a new document 450×200

Next add in a background if desired, for this tutorial I chose a plain portion of a wall from a stock

Now add the text you want to use this effect on. I recommend a sans serif font with rounded edges because it leads to better results than other fonts. For this tutorial I used “Arial Rounded MT Bold” with a size of 70pt. Select a color that is a deep blood-like red.. I used #660000.

Next make a new layer and brush vertical lines using the same color as your text. Use the pencil tool with a 6-7px size. To make straight lines click in the letter where the line begin and hold shift while you drag downward until you have the length you want. Draw as many or as few as you think looks good. Also mix the length up a bit so it doesn’t look so uniform.

Next step is where the magic starts. This effect is mainly achieved using the Liquify filter. While the vertical line layer is selected go to Filter>Liquify (or Ctrl+Shift+X). Select the Expand option and using a 4px brush make small circles at the bottom of each of your drawn lines. Try to make the ends seem like realistic oval-shaped ends.

Now merge the two layers of your text and the vertical lines (Ctrl+E) Then go back to the Liquify filter (Shift+Ctrl+X). Using the same expand tool, slightly enlarge the line where it meets the base of the text. I find the best effect comes from slightly moving the brush back and forth in the direction of the letter.

Now either stay in the Liquify filter edit box, or go back to it if you’ve already exited. This time select the Contract tool . Using this tool, go up and down the vertical lines to get more realistic strands of blood. Make sure that each strand is uneven and irregular to give it another feel of realism.

Now if you are satisfied with the effect that you have now then you can leave it how it is. Otherwise there are a few more effects to make it even more realistic.

Optional: Add a slight bevel to give it a shine. Go to the layer properties and add a bevel and emboss and a contour with these settings.

Result:

You can tinker around with the bevel and the contour settings, but these are what I felt gave the best results.

I hope you enjoyed this bloody text effect tutorial. I enjoyed making it.

This tutorial will describe how to add a text box around your text to give it a highlight effect. There are many variations you could come up with using colors, lower opacity, higher opacity and placing the box in front of the text. This tutorial will show you how to add a white box behind your text.

This is a simple tutorial that covers text settings. It will walk you through the text options and you will soon be on your way to creating quality text on your graphics.