Manual Techniques vs Layer Styles

Welcome to the first Photoshop tutorial in Photoshop InDepth. In this Photoshop tutorial we compare the pros and cons of both Photoshop layer styles and manual techniques like brushing and discuss how to employ both techniques in your Photoshop designs.

What you can see above is a powerful demonstration of Photoshop Layer Styles against manual techniques. While I don't claim the styled text above is the best demonstration of Layer Styles, it does have its limitations, even at its best. On the other hand, text effects using manual techniques (in this case: channels, brushing, colour dodge and burn) are far more robust and flexible. It is very clearly demonstrated which one can achieve a more superior visual effect.

I have tabulated the pros and cons of each technique for your reference:

Manual Technique	Layer Styles
very time consuming even when repeating same technique/effect	can be very quickly applied to different objects
requires certain skill levels with Photoshop to execute	can easily be produced without any skills with Photoshop
effect cannot be produced by the masses	effect can easily be duplicated within a short amount of time
cannot be imitated easily	can be emulated easily
produces more complicated images from different perspectives	produces simple images that look two-dimensional (i.e flat)

While manual techniques have obvious graphical edges over layer styles, there are times when manual techniques are simply not suitable (i.e time factor, real estate on webpages). Therefore, it is often best to use both techniques (I think of it as hybrid) wherever/whenever required.

Now, let's stop the talking and get our hands dirty...

Layer Styles

Let's start with layer styles. Since "aqua" type effects are so popular around the web, we'll start by making our own aqua type like the one shown to the right.

First, we start with a fat kind of font, with curlies at the end (something like Times New Roman). The one I used is ITC Garamond, which I installed from a CD. Anyway, we change the text colour to a dark aquaish blue (mine is #009bf4).

Next we fire up our mighty Layer Styles by double-clicking on the text layer. Click on the checkbox next to "Drop Shadow" and change the settings to produce a light shadow, light the one shown in the small image up there. For me, I just dropped the opacity to around 30% and kept the original values for Size and Distance. The purpose of adding a Drop Shadow is to create a sense of depth. This means we produce an illusion of the text hovering a little above the page.

Note: personally, I detest dark shadows (try setting opacity to 100% to see what I mean) because they don't give the sense of depth I talked about just now. A soft shadow is more convincing because in the real world, light comes from all directions, therefore cast shadows are often faded, not opaque like our 100% black shadow.

After that, we check both the "Inner Shadow" and "Inner Glow" boxes. For both styles' options, set the blending mode to "Color Dodge" and the colour to White (#ffffff). For Inner Shadow, uncheck the "use global" option and change the angle to -60. You should now adjust the "Size" options for each style to make it look something like the image here. This step is to produce an illusion of transparency in the text. When an object is transparent in the real world, light rays are able to pass through the object, resulting in either reflection or refraction. In this case, our text has light going into it, and converging at certain points, which give a very strong light. This is the purpose of our lighter shade of our base colour of the text. At this point, there is already a strong aqua feel to the image, but it looks too crude.

For instance, the text looks too fake. Although we have simulated it based on the behaviours of light, the result is not convincing. To remedy this, I have applied some techniques that contradict with real life theory, but will make our image look nicer. Check the box next to "Stroke" and change the Size to 1, colour to your base colour (#009bf4). This step is to strengthen the shape of your text, since both the text and background colours are close to white. If this text was on a dark background, this step would not be necessary, as demonstrated in the image.

There, here we have it, instant aqua text! By just using less than 5 layer styles, a nice plasticky-aqua-text effect can be produced. Moreover, you can change the text anytime and the style will apply to your new text!

Tip: if you want to apply the effect to text on another layer, just right-click on your text layer and choose "Copy Layer Style". Then, right-click on the text layer which you want to apply the text on and choose "Paste Layer Style".

Press here to download my .psd file for the final image. You will need Winzip to extract the .psd files and the font (ITC Garamond) that I have also included.

Manual Techniques

Alright, let's proceed with manual techniques in Photoshop. For this tutorial, I am going to discuss specifically in text effects context, since most Photoshop users are new to this concept. We are going to explore the creation of glossy metallic 3D text just like the one in the image here.

Before we start, be sure to keep this in mind. When working with raster graphics, images scaled up (magnified) will not look nice. In fact, magnified raster images will look blurred due to the lack of pixel information to fill the enlarged space. If you don't understand, just remember to start with something larger than your target image's size. When you are finished with the image, you can shrink it to your required size and the image will look sharper.

First, we create a new text layer with the Horizontal Type Tool. I typed a big R (size: 400, colour: #bdbdbd). Generally you can start with a big light-grey font. For clarity's sake, let's rename our text layer "R"The next step is to Rasterize the type. Go to Layer > Rasterize > Type. We have to rasterize the text so that we can Distort it to make it look like viewed from a 3D perspective.

Now, with our layer "R" still selected, press CTRL+T to Transform your text. You should see eight little squares around the R. Right click anywhere within the boundary and select Distort. Now, drag the dots in the corners so that your bounding-box resembles something like the image to the left. When you are satisfied with your image, press Enter to confirm.

Right now, our pseudo-3D R looks a little flimsy, just like a card standing upright. To fix that, we have to create depth for the R: first press CTRL+J to duplicate the layer "R". Then, drag the layer "R copy" in the Layers tab so that layer "R copy" is placed under "R". Now, select the Move Tool. Press the ALT+Right key on your keyboard. The layer "R copy" is copied and moved to the right by 1 pixel. Then, press ALT+Right once. Layer "R copy 2" is created and it is 1 pixel to the right to layer "R copy". Press ALT+Right once more to duplicate another layer. Now, press UP on your keyboard to move the newest duplicate layer 1 pixel up. Keep repeating "ALT+RIGHT, ALT+RIGHT, UP" until you get you desired depth.

When you have your desired text depth, make sure the latest duplicate layer is selected. Then, click the little box next to the layer below. A little chain icon should appear, as shown in the image. Link all of the "R copy" layers, taking care not to link to the "R" layer as well. When all of the "R copy" layers have been linked, press CTRL+E to Merge all the layers together into one single layer. Rename this layer "Depth" just for clarity.

Explanation time! First, we used the Distort technique to distort the R, so that it looks like viewed from a perspective. Simple enough. Then, we duplicated many layers which are placed under the original layer. This is to create a "depth" for the R; so that the R will look like a solid thing standing there, instead of a thin, flimsy card. When duplicating, the UP key is pressed every two intervals, this is to make the depth fit the perspective of the original R layer.

Now, we are going to shade the highlights and shadows of our "Depth" layer (We are going to deal with "Face" later, using another technique). First, use the Dodge Tool to shade the highlight areas of your image, typically areas facing up. Then, use the Burn Tool to shade the shadowed areas of your image, typically areas facing down. For both the Dodge & Burn Tools, I have set the Range (can be found right below the Photoshop menu) to "Highlights" and Exposure to "50%". This is the part where Photoshopping skills that can only be obtained by practising is required. You would need to judge which part is highlighted or shadowed yourself; there is no guideline (if you haven't found Photoshop InDepth, that is).

Anyway, we are now going to deal with the "Face" layer. First, CTRL+Click on the layer "Face" in the layers tab to select the shape of the layer. You will see a marquee selection of the R if you have done it right. Next, go to the Channels tab and click on the Create New Channel button (see image). Then, fill the selection with a white (#ffffff) colour and press CTRL+D to release the selection. Go to Filters>Blur>Gaussian Blur and blur by an amount of 10 pixels. When you're done, go back to the Layers tab and press on the now bolded "Face" layer.

Then, go to Filter>Render>Lighting Effects. I left the settings in the dialogue at their default values, only changing the texture channel to "Alpha 1". I have also adjusted the light position in the dialogue. When you're done, click OK. You should get something like the image here.

What Lighting Effects does is to throw light on the image according to the texture channel. Since high areas (highlight) is represented by white and low (shadow) areas is represented by black, taking a blurred white silhouette of the subject as the texture channel creates a gradual highlight to shadow transition. Please remember this method as the Lighting Effects filter is very useful when doing this kind of stuff as it can save a lot of time. However, this method is only suitable for flat surfaces, hence I did not apply it to the "depth" layer.

Now, go to Image>Adjustments>Curves to edit the curves. Make the curves something like the image to the left. Do the same for the "depth" layer too. Now, just create a new layer under "depth" and use a black soft brush to paint some shadows. You will want to paint the portions where the text block touches the ground.

Hopefully, you will be able to achieve the effect here. To download my psd of the final image, click here. I am not going to elaborate on Curves here, as the topic itself is worth a tutorial by itself. Maybe that's what I am going to write on next.

Anyway, I hope you have realised the potential of both methods, Layer Styles and Manual Techniques, and figured out how to implement them in your future Photoshop designs. Remember, keep practising to maximize your talents and to gain valuable experience.