Create Texture Shadowed Type In Photoshop

Posted on 01. Sep, 2010 by Shawn Ramsey in Articles

No doubt, you’ve probably seen the diagonal striped shadow type treatment being used throughout the design world. I’ll admit, at least for the immediate future, I’m a fan of it as well. I wanted to take the concept into a different direction by hitting it at a grungy angle and by using brushes rather than patterns. Although the tutorial is focused on creating the shadow effect, we will end up beating the type up a bit to help to help tie the whole thing together.

Step 1: Background and Text

Choose a size for the project you want to work on and either create or place a paper texture into the background of the project. If you want to follow step-by-step, I’m using a 540px X 300px canvas size for the final product. Lay out some text onto the screen. In this tutorial, I’m using the Bebas font at a size of 150 pt and with the color #141414.

Step 2: Text Selection

Highlight or select the text by holding the CTRL key while clicking on the thumbnail associated with the type layer. A dashed line surrounding the text will let you know that you’re on the right track.

Go ahead and hide the text layer and create a new layer making sure that you are on this newly created layer. Your text selection should still be traced by the diagonal line and visible on the screen.

Step 3: Apply Brush

Grab a textured brush and apply it to the selection. In this example, I’m using some of the best textured brushes available on the web. You can pick those up over at Function’s site (I’ll meet you back here in a second).

In this step I’m using the brush labeled “Denim Patch” at 605px and at 100% opacity. You may need to apply it multiple times for it to be visible enough to stand out.

You should now have something similar to this on a layer separate from the text layer. This will be our shadow layer.

Step 4: Nudging the Shadow

Turn your text layer back on and make sure that it is above your shadow (textured) layer. With the Move Tool activated, use your keyboard keys to nudge the shadow layer 7px to the right and 5px down. You should have something similar to the screenshot below.

Step 5: Cropping the Shadow

Again, hold down the CTRL key while clicking on the text layer thumbnail to select the original text. Make sure that the Marquee tool is engaged in Photoshop and that you are on the shadow layer. Use your keyboard to nudge the selection 3px to the right and 2px down. Hit delete to remove a small section of the textured shadow around the edge of the text layer.

Step Last: Final Outcome

Here’s the final product as it stands, but it’s obviously missing something. The text is just a bit too clean to be sporting such a rough shadow.

Try grunging it up a bit by rasterizing the type layer and using the same textured brush that you used to create the shadow, but this time as an eraser, to chip away at the text. I dropped the opacity of the eraser to 70% before hacking away. This is what I ended up with after a few clicks with the denim eraser.

Your Turn

So there it is, my spin on the striped shadow technique using a denim brush rather than perfectly horizontal patterns. There are at least a million and one different ways to accomplish this and you should definitely try experimenting with different brushes, fonts and textures to adapt the concept to your own style. If you enjoyed the tutorial, please share it with your friends and let me know what you think in the comments.

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Tags: photoshop, tips, typography