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Magically Inverting Text in Photoshop

Submitted by colleen on 20 March 2013 - 12:15pm.

Today's Photoshop tutorial covers a scenario that, for reasons beyond my comprehension, I encounter often. That is, how to make text that inverts against its background. Or how to make text that inverts its background. The semantics are different, the effect is the same. 

Or, as Deke once put it, "You make text that inverts unambiguously. Where the image is white, the text is black; where the image is black, the text is white. And where the image is gray, or near gray, the text provides as much contrast as possible."

And when you've created this text, you can actually move it anywhere in your image and get the same effect, with the text adjusting to its surroundings like a gorgeous black-or-white chameleon that can assess shades of gray and make a call which way to go. 

There's a relatively simple set of steps to follow to create this delightfully accommodating text:  Read more » 

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Deke's Techniques 102: Creating a Hobbit Movie Logo Effect in Adobe AI and Photoshop

Submitted by deke on 18 December 2012 - 12:15am.
Deke's Techniques 102: Creating a Hobbit Movie Logo Effect in Illustrator and Photoshop

This week's installment of Deke's Techniques shows how to create type that looks just like the logo for The Hobbit movie poster. Which is an insanely great effect.

As many of you know, Peter Jackson and company decided to divide The Hobbit---a 310-page book---into three movies. At the beginning of my video (the one above), I joke that the first movie (An Unexpected Journey) covers the first 36 pages of the book. Today, I took my boys to see the movie. And, as it turns out, I wasn't joking!

I timed it: The movie doesn't get to the beginning of the book, The Hobbit, until 37 minutes in! And it takes another 15 minutes (or thereabout, didn't time it) to cover the first page of the damn thing. After that, we discover that Thorin (the lead dwarf) hates elves, a wizard named Radagast the Brown rides on a sleigh pulled by bunnies, Saruman has something to do with this story, Cate Blanchett and Ian McKellen can speak to each other telekinetically, Bilbo (with no prior knowledge of swordsmanship) slays orcs and goblins (who attack ad nauseum and at various sizes), there are Stone Giants (why?), and Bilbo is tempted to kill Golum but he manages to trick a trio of trolls instead. None of which happens in the book! The movie is mildly entertaining (I got up and ordered popcorn at one point b/c I was so bored, after which I fell asleep twice), but it has Precious little to do with The Hobbit.

So here's my advice: Wait for the Blu-ray. And if you're making a movie based on a popular children's novel, diverge from it as much as possible and milk it for all you're worth.

Meanwhile, if you want to make your type look like The Hobbit movie logo (which is awesomely cool!), watch my video. Here's the official description from lynda.com: Read more » 

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Deke's Techniques 049: Designing an Indiana Jones Logo

Submitted by deke on 6 December 2011 - 12:15am.
Deke's Techniques 049: Designing an Indiana Jones Logo

Today, I'm offline on a personal adventure. And yet, I still manage to offer you a kind of adventure as well. In the form of Adventure Type in Photoshop.

Here's the official description from lynda.com: Read more » 

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I've Finally Begun Work on Photoshop Extended One-on-One: 3D Type Effects

Submitted by deke on 12 August 2011 - 12:15am.

I've had a couple of questions about when I'll be releasing the last of my four-part video series on 3D in Photoshop for lynda.com, Photoshop Extended One-on-One: 3D Type Effects. After all, I started the series nearly five months ago, so you'd think I'd be done by now. But it's been a busy Summer, and with one thing or another (including four Up and Running courses), I got distracted. But I'm finally getting back to it, and having an absolute blast I must say. For example, here's an image from Chapter 2 of the course, "Hand-Drawn Type." Don't you just want to reach out and photocopy it?

Hand-drawn 3D type in Photoshop

And that's not the best of it. Read more » 

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Deke's Techniques 028: Adding Stereo-3D Text and Shapes

Submitted by deke on 12 July 2011 - 12:15am.
Deke's Techniques 028: Adding Stereo-3D Text and Shapes

Hey gang. This week's Deke's Techniques videos are all about adding text and shapes to a 3D stereoscopic photograph, like the one created in last week's technique. In today's free movie, I show you how to add text and shapes at different planes of depth. In the follow-up video at lynda.com, I show you how to tilt the text and shapes so they incline in 3D space toward the viewer.

Here's the official description from lynda.com: Read more » 

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