benelie asked me about the text effect I used on the
Dollhouse picspam, so here’s a simple tutorial.
Tutorial #004: Text effect
Made in: Photoshop CS2
Level of Difficulty: Easy, even for beginners
Let’s start with a screencap that I’ve already worked (colorings etc.) on as a base.
Sometimes it can be hard to come up with a text that fits a certain scene, so just try to be creative, you can use quotes or even lyrics, that’s all up to you.
Once you have an idea what kind of text you want to write on your icon, you have to decide what font to use. There are unlimited ways of how to use a font: use different sizes --> make important words bigger, use different styles like bold or italic, or just use different fonts! There are many sites that offer fonts for free, my personal favourite is
dafont!
Anyhoodle, for this tutorial I decided to use
BorisBlackBloxxx (1), size 30pt (2), set the anti-aliasing to “Smooth” (3), because the other methods (Sharp, Crisp, Strong) make this font look a bit pixelated.
Another important thing when it comes to text is the
placement. I personally try to avoid long sentences otherwise your icon looks distracting and overloaded. Therefore I'd recommend to use only a few words that reflect the cap/scene. Don’t just copy and paste a long NY Times article…
I could already finish this cap, because the background of the cap is not too bright so you’re still able to read the text. But sometimes you have brighter caps, and bright cap + white font color = hardly readable. So that’s why we have to change the color (plus, it makes the font look more interesting). I usually use the
EYEDROPPER TOOL (4) to get a color from the actual screencap which I then use instead of the white font color.
Then I look for another color, usually a similar color but just a bit darker to use it as an outline. Double-click the text in the layers palette (or right-click and then
“Blending Options…” (5) ), go to STROKE (6), use the new color and set the size to 1, then click OK.
Then right-click your text layer and duplicate it. Make sure that the duplicate's stroke function is
TURNED OFF (7).
Then go to Filter >> Blur >> Gaussian Blur… and in order to go on you have to rasterize the text. Now you can decide
what pixels you set for the radius (8), I wouldn’t use more than 3 pixels, otherwise the blur won’t cover the actual font anymore.
Merge all the layers and you’re finished!
Other examples using the same technique:
![](http://i148.photobucket.com/albums/s35/07022007/Dollhouse/dollhouse80.png)
![](http://i148.photobucket.com/albums/s35/07022007/Weeds/weeds25.png)
![](http://i148.photobucket.com/albums/s35/07022007/Dollhouse/dollhouse64.png)
°°°
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PIC SPAM #006: Dollhouse - 1x08 "Needs" - favorite scenes---
PIC SPAM #005: Buffy the Vampire Slayer - sad scenes---
PIC SPAM #004: Tru Calling 1x01 "Pilot"---
PIC SPAM #003: 2008 Review---
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affiliates;
font guide;
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