Create an Awesome 3D Text Effect in Photoshop

Create an Awesome 3D Text Effect with Abstract Brush Decoration in Photoshop

PSD File Download

Step 1

Create a new document sized 740px * 1050px, fill the background layer with black colour. Create a new layer called “texture” and paint some grunge texture onto it:

Duplicate this texture layer once, resize it as shown below:

Erase the corners of the duplicated layer with a big soft brush:

you will have the following effect:

Step 2

Now let’s add a big 3D text onto it. If you have illustrator, use it to render a 3D text. If not, you can download this PSD file and use it for this tutorial.
Place the text to the position shown below, name the layer as “big text”:

Apply the following layer blending option to it:
Color Overlay

Gradient Overlay

you will have the following effect:

Add the following mask to this big text layer:

you will have the following effect:

Also create a new clipping mask layer, grab a big soft white brush to add a highlight to the top-left corner of the big text:

Step 3

Create a layer called “cloud” under the big text layer, use either cloud brush or rendered cloud, to the positions shown below:

Also add a highlight layer with a big soft white brush from the top-left corner:

I also decided to add a bit of splashing effect to the text. So grab a 1px hard brush, apply the following brush dynamics to it:
Shape Dynamics

Scattering

Other Dynamics

Tick the “Airbrush”, “Smoothing” and “Protect Texture” options.
Use this brush and paint some dots to the positions shown below:

You can also add a ray of light on top of the big text to spice things up. To do this, use a soft white brush to do a single-click, then distort it as shown below:

Warp it after the distortion, try to bend the bottom to create a curvy shape:

Position this light on the top right corner of the big text:

Step 4

Now let’s add some variety to the text. Duplicate the big text layer once, cancel the color overlay blending option, resize and position it as shown below:

Add a dark light for the text, painted it with a black soft brush to the position shown below:

Carefully painting some shadow under the text, with a soft black brush:

Duplicate the big text layer once more, resize it and position the layer to the top-left, as shown below:

Add a highlight layer with a soft white brush (single-click to the position shown below):

Carefully paint some shadow under the text, same as the previous step:

Create a new layer called “big text shadow” on top of all previous layer, and grab a big soft brush with black colour, paint some shadow to the bottom of the text, as shown below”

you will have the following effect:

Step 5

Now let’s make another custom brushset. Create a new document sized 40px * 100px, add a new layer and fill it with black colour, hit Ctrl + A and select this new layer:

Go to Edit > Define Brush Preset and create a new brushset:

Then apply the following brush dynamics:
Shape Dynamics

Scattering

Other Dynamics

Tick the “Airbrush”, “Smoothing”, “Protect Texture” options.
Create a new layer just below the original text layer, and start painting. (try different brush size as you go, apply the following smart sharpen filter once you’re done painting)

you will have the following effect:

You can see we also have some see-through effect on the text, because of the layer mask on the big text layer we added earlier:

Step 6

OK we’re almost done. For some final touchups, I added two image adjustment layers on top:
Curves

Color Balance



Layer Mask of Color Balance adjustment layer:

and you will have the following effect:

For add some motions into the images, we can flatten the image, duplicate the background layer once and apply the following motion blur settings to it:

Change the layer blending mode of this blur layer to “Screen” and layer opacity to around 60%, then add the following layer mask on it:

Here is the final effect for this tutorial: (click to enlarge)