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Add some bling to your designs with this sparkle text technique

Application:

Adobe Photoshop CS2/CS3/CS4/CS5

Operating Systems:

Macintosh, Microsoft Windows

If you want to make a lasting impression you need to capture your audience’s attention. Use this simple text effect to make your headlines sparkle and stand out from the crowd.

To create text that sparkles like diamonds, we’ll:

•     Create a new document and set the type as the foundation for this technique.

•     Apply a simple filter to create a diamond look.

•     Add a border and paint some bursts to make the text really stand out.

If you’re looking for decorative text to enhance your designs, we have the perfect technique for you! Using Photoshop you can easily create text that sparkles, as shown in Figure A .

A

Set the type

First you need to create a new document and set some type. A large bold font works best for this technique.

To set the type:

1.       Create a new 6.5" wide by 3" inch high RGB 300 ppi document with a white background.

2.      Select the Horizontal Type tool from the Tools panel.

3.      Set the type options on the tool Options bar. We set our options to Impact 124 pt. The color doesn’t matter at this point.

4.      Click on the canvas and type diamond for results shown in Figure B .

5.      [command]-click ([Ctrl]-click in Windows) on the text thumbnail to load a selection of the text.

6.      Click on the Create A New Layer button at the base of the Layers panel to add a new layer.

7.      Press D to set the foreground and background colors to black and white respectively.

8.      Choose Filter > Render > Clouds.

9.      Press [command]D ([Ctrl]D in Windows) to Deselect All for results shown in Figure C .

B

C

Add the bling

Now you’re ready to create the diamond effect, which you’ll accomplish with the Glass filter.

To create the diamond effect:

1.       Choose Filter > Distort > Glass to display the Glass dialog box.

2.      Enter 20 in the Distortion text box, 1 in the Smoothness text box, choose Tiny Lens from the Texture pop-up menu, and enter 50 in the Scaling text box, as shown in Figure D .

3.      Click OK for results shown in Figure E .

D

E

4.      Press [command]L ([Ctrl]L in Windows) to display the Levels dialog box.

5.   ...