In
this tutorial we'll be creating a smoky night effect on text to give it
an eerie supernatural sort of feel. It's a good exercise in using the
Wave distortion filter...
Step 1
The first thing we need for our image is a background. We're going to
use a quick star-sky background. There are lots of tutorials around for
this effect, and it's actually a simple two-step process: clouds +
noise.
So on a new blank canvas, start by choosing a dark blue color -
#18323a - and black and then go to Filter > Render > Clouds.
Step 2
Now create a new layer, fill it with black, and go to Filter > Noise > Add Noise and use values roughly as shown below.
Step 3
Now that is way too much noise, so go to Image > Adjustment >
Levels (or Ctrl+L) and bring those sliders together until you see most
of the 'stars' vanish as shown.
Step 4
Now set the stars layer's blending mode to Screen so that the black
vanishes and just the stars remain. It's still a bit too even though, so
add a Layer Mask to the layer, and with a large fat brush just mask out
blobs so that it seems a little less even. See the screenshot below to
see the layer mask I added...
Step 5
In this step, I added a radial gradient layer going from the white in
the center to black at the edges and set the layer to Overlay and 45%
Opacity. The effect is just to darken the edges and it's not an
essential step. In any case you should have something like this image
shown below.
Step 6
Now we add our text. I've used a font called Cuez_Ver6 which looks
suitably strange. If you go to a free font site and look under sci-fi or
the like, you'll doubtless find something similar. Actually it's quite
unreadable really (especially the r), but who cares, it looks cool!
Step 7
Next we're going to add some layer styles. You can get a sample PSD
file at the end of this tutorial, but because we're switching to a pay
system for the samples, I'll go through the settings in case you don't
want to buy the file.
First I've given the text a Color Overlay of straight black
(#000000). Then because the basis of this text effect is a creepy light,
I added inner glows. First an Inner Glow as shown below, and then an
Inner Shadow with color #54a4ff, blend mode Screen, distance 1, size 2,
angle -90', and everything else default.
Step 8
Next we use a textured Bevel and Emboss to give the style some
unevenness. You can see the Bevel settings below. The Texture I added is
just one of the standard ones that comes with Photoshop that looks like
bubbles. And I set the Depth to -79.
As you can see below, this makes the inner glow look a lot more uneven.
Step 9
Finally I added a Drop Shadow and Outer Glow, both set using Screen
and the color #008ac5. I used both so that I could make one of them a
small glow and one a really spread out glow, so the distances were 10px
and 100px.
Step 10
Ok, so here's our text with the Layer Style applied. It's off to a
good start, but you can only do so much with Layer Styles, so now we do
some good ol' manual effects.
Step 11
First of all, duplicate the text, right-click the layer, and remove
the layer styles. Then change the color of the text to a fluorescent
blue (#5cdbff). Then press the up arrow once to move it one pixel up.
This will give a sort of glow effect as shown below.
Step 12
Ok, this next step is the key step in this tutorial.
Duplicate the text layer with the fluoro blue color. Then go to
Filter > Distort > Wave. You can use mostly the default settings,
except where it has Scale. I've set this to just 10% and 10%. This will
distort the text, but only a little bit. If you leave it at 100% the
effect is pretty full-on!
(Note: In the image below, I moved the text down so that it would be clear that I was applying the wave filter to it.)
Step 13
After you have distorted text, go to Filter > Blur > Gaussian Blur and use a value of 4px. Then set the Opacity to 20%.
In the screenshot below, I've switched off the main text so that you can see the distorted text.
Step 14
Now hold down Ctrl and click on that text layer to select it's pixels
and then go to Select > Modify > Contract and use a value of 5px.
Then press Shift+Ctrl+I to invert the selection and hit Delete. This
should leave a thin wispy looking remnant of your text.
Now switch on the main text layer, and it should look like a tiny bit of smoke coming off the letters.
Step 15
Now duplicate that layer and go to Filter > Distort > Wave and distort this copy even more.
Now repeat this step a couple of times and vary what you do with the
wave. So you might want to press Randomize sometimes, or sometimes
distort the copy a few times. Also I used a mix of blending modes on the
different copies of the smoke. Two of them I had no blending mode set,
two of them I used Overlay, and for another two I used Hard Light.
Also it's a good idea to mix up whether they are behind or in front
of the text. Remember you want the effect to look like wisps of smoke
coming off the letters.
Step 16
Now that we have our small smoke sorted out, it's time to add some bigger wisps.
So again duplicate the fluoro blue text layer.
Step 17
We now apply another Wave distortion, but this time where it has
Scale, set the horizontal to 5% and the vertical to 100%. This will make
the shapes become very elongated as shown. Once you've applied the
wave, just repeatedly hit Ctrl+F to keep doing it over and over again
until the text has been completely distorted into long wispy shapes.
Step 18
Once you have a good smoky-looking effect, set the layer blending
mode to Hard Light and you should have something similar to the image
shown below.
Step 19
Now duplicate that last layer and run a Gaussian Blur by going to
Filter > Render > Gaussian Blur with a value of 4px. This will
make our layer look a little softer.
After that, get a large soft eraser brush and just brush away some of
the bits at the bottom and top so that it fades off as it approaches
the edges.
You may also want to repeat these last couple of steps to add more wisps.
Step 20
Here I've removed the bottom of those wisps and added a few more
subtle copies. Also I added some extra type above the main text just to
make it look a bit cooler.
Step 21
Next I moved one or two of the wispy layers in front of the text so
that it looks like the smoke is trailing over the letters. In particular
look at the E in super to see what I mean.
Step 22
Finally, to give it a more eerie feel I added a layer above all the
others and with a large brush painted some green on top, then set the
layer blending mode to Color to make it so that the image is a
blue-green coloring. And we're done! One slick, smoky effect!
