Home > Tutorials > Photoshop > Basic

Photoshop Tutorial 0003 - Quick Tip! - How to create "Pouring" Letters

This is a fun and quick tip on how to use Photoshop to create "Liquidy" letters. It doesn't take much, and demonstrates how to use filters and Levels.

This is a tip that I wrote down over five years ago and recently found when backing up my zip disks. The original tip was written for Photoshop 3 and used a filter that came free on the CD - the Gallery Effects Plastic Wrap. Now, this filter is included free with Photoshop (along with pretty much all of the Gallery effects filters), and is available for all sorts of fun effects!

This tip has been rewritten for Photoshop 5.5, but should work almost the same for earlier versions (with the exception of version 2).

You will need a couple of things to make this work. First, of course, you need the Plastic Wrap Filter. Then you need a distressed typewriter font (you know, the ones everyone was over-using a couple of years ago). I prefer Attic, myself, but there are many more out there. Any roughed-up font should work fairly well; we just don't want smooth edges.

Once you've got the font installed, we can get down to business!

1. In Photoshop, create a new document. The dimensions should be 400 x 400 pixels (you can go less if you have a smaller screen), and the background color should be white.

2. Make sure that the foreground color is black, and select the Type tool. Click the type tool in center of the document. Select your font, in this case - Attic, and set the size to 300. Type the letter "y" in lowercase.

3. Next, you need to render the Type layer before we can continue. Go to the LAYER menu and select TYPE > Render. This changes the text layer to a bitmap and will allow us to use filters and adjustments on the layer.

4. Go to the FILTERS menu and select ARTISTIC > Plastic Wrap. Set the Highlight Strength to 15, the Detail to 9, and the Smoothness to 7 (these may be the defaults).

Click the OK button to continue. Doesn't look much like milk yet, does it?

5. The trick here is the multiple application of the Plastic Wrap filter. To run the filter again at the same settings, go to the FILTER menu. Notice that the first item on the menu is now the Plastic Wrap filter. The most recent filter will always occupy this position and can be applied again by using the Command-F keyboard combination. Go ahead and apply the filter again. Now we are getting liquidy!

Run it one more time and we are just about there!

6. So, we got liquidy, but the color is still too dark. We need to adjust the Levels. Go to the IMAGE menu and choose ADJUST > LEVELS. In the Input Levels area, set the gray level (second box) to 2.46 and the white level (third box) to 189. The black is still too strong if you intend to put this on a light background. In the Output Levels, set black to 92 and leave white at 255. Click the OK button to continue.

7. Now you have a milky-looking effect! If you really want to push this, start playing with the Plastic Wrap settings, and change the texture and color of the object. Very fun!