1. Create some text using the type tool (
). Try
to use a color for the text that's very close to the background
color (in this case black or some other very dark color) to prevent some
things later on. If you're using photoshop 4.x, it'll make a new layer
called "Layer 1" which has the text on it, and is where the entire
logo will be created (just stay on Layer 1, ok!...unless you know what
yer doing).2. For a few reasons, you want to save the selection of the font, and the easiest way to do that is to hold down the CTRL key and left click on the layer name (in this case, "Layer 1"). You'll see the marching ants dancing around yer logo now. And like I said, we want to save that selection, so go to the Channels Palette and click "save selection to channel" button (
)...this will make "channel #4" that has a black
background and your logo in white, which looks like this:
3. With the marching ants still dancing around yer logo, click the "create new channel" button (
)...this makes channel #5. Now you'll see a black
screen with just the ants...4. Fill the newly created channel with the gradient tool (
) going from the bottom of the font to the top
of the font (hold down shift to constrain the direction...you want a
vertical line)...you should have something that looks like this:
5. Now we have two channels...#4 and #5 (#5 is the important one). And, we're still in channel "mode" which is grayscale...we wanna get back to "color" mode so we can get started adding the textures. Click "RGB Channel" from the channel palette (or type ctrl-~).
6. Load up chanel #4 which is the selection of our whole font. You can load it from the "Select/Load Selection" menu or use the short-cut key CTRL-ALT-4.
7. Fill the text with a texture (using KPT Texture Explore or make your own). I try to keep this first texture kind of plain with no abrupt color shifts (i.e. very low contrast), but this is just my preference, do what you want. Your text should now be filled with your first texture:
8. Now we wanna blend that first texture with another one. Load up "channel #5" which is the gradient filled channel we made earlier. You'll see that the ants are only marching around half of your logo (why only half? Because photoshop only show the ants up to 50% transparency).
9. With channel #5 loaded, fill it with your second texture that you want blended into the first one. Personally I make sure this texture is more detailed to make it more interesting. In this case I used my "trademark" texture which is a caustic-like texture created by KPT Texture Explore...here's what the blended textures look like now:
10. You see how that gradient channel made it slowly blend upwards?...that's how channels work, they control trasparency (i.e. how much your texture shows through) That's all there is too it. It's that magic gradient channel (channel #5) that does all the work. All you gotta do now is tweak the colors, use some more filters on it, add another texture on top of that, etc....just make it look nice. The rest of the time I spend is adding borders, using filters on it, playing with the colors, etc. Here's the final result of a simple 10 minute logo:
Just some last things now. Some of you might wanna know how I created that black border around the text with the glow...all I did was load up channel #4, Select/Modify/Expand and enter 3 pixels for the width, after that I just used a glow plugin from Alien Skin (an older version of EyeCandy).
Oh, and in case you don't understand what I meant when I was saying "Channel Palette"...this is what I was talking about...these little menu box thingies are called palettes in photoshop (if you don't see it, go to the Window menu and click on "Show Channels"):
Hmm, I guess that's about it. I'm not the best person and explaining things (this tutorial wasn't meant for the very beginner either, which is why I didn't tell you ever button to push), but I hope I did a good enough job for now =) Welp, keep practicing and don't be afraid to play around with those channels...they're very useful! =) Until next time...