Photoshop Tutorial 0009: Distressed Type & Fire using Calculations

Raise your hand if you remember the mid-90's "hip" distressed font syndrome! Ever wonder how that over-used, type technique came into being? Well, probably not like this, although there may have been some enterprising graphic designers who kept their tips to themselves instead of flooding the web with them (gotta protect those extremely valuable trade secrets...).

What I remember reading about and seeing, were people who printed out their titles, in the correct font, then resized and recopied the pages on Xerox machines, the crudier the better, then rescanned and manipulated until the letters forms were corroded and messed up. The point was to get rid of the clean, computer generated look. The result was that everyone and their dog used this type of effect until all of the rest of us were ready to puke.

Why am I resurrecting this most hated effect? Well, in some places, namely NOT the corporate newsletter, this effect can actually be quite useful and appropriate. The key is moderation. In addition, this is a really good way to learn the innermost workings of the Calculations feature of Photoshop.

So, without further ado, let's get to work grunging up type and setting it on fire!

Every design has a starting place, like every title has important information to convey. For this exercise, we will create a title with the words "Design" in black text on a white background.

1. Open a new file.  Set the dimensions to 300 x 300 pixels, 72 dpi,  RGB, white background and click OK.

2. Set the foreground color to black.

3. Select the Type tool and click inside your document. Select a font from the pull down menu, set your size to 100 pt., and your tracking to 30. Type "Design" in the text field. Click the OK button, or press the Enter key on your keyboard to continue.

4. In order to proceed, we need to convert the text layer to a pixel layer. Go to the LAYER menu and select TYPE > Render Type Layer.

5. We need to center this text in order to help with later procedures. Select the entire area (EDIT > Select All). Cut the image by choosing EDIT > CUT, and paste it back in. This will automatically center the resulting layer.

6. Save your file as original.psd.

7. Now we need to duplicate our file in order to create our construction pieces. Go to the IMAGE menu and choose duplicate. Name the new file sourceA.psd.

8. Flatten the layers on this image by going to the LAYER menu and choosing Flatten.

9. Duplicate sourceA.psd and name the duplicate sourceB.psd. This will help you keep track of files as you create calculations.

10. In sourceB.psd, go to the FILTERS menu and choose Brush Strokes > Spatter. Set the spray radius to 10 and the smoothness to 5.

Result - sourceB.psd

11. Switch to sourceA.psd. It is time to apply our calculations. Open the Calculations Dialog by going to the IMAGE menu and choosing Calculations. This little dialog box holds more power than is evident at first glance, and harkens back to the days of Photoshop 2, before layers were available and most filters were third party purchases. Make sure that the Preview button is checked (this will save lots of time).

12. Set source 1 to sourceA.psd. Set source2 to sourceB.psd. Set the blend to Multiply 100%. This will produce black text on a white background.

Inverting sourceB.psd creates a black background with a white spatter outline of the text.

Inverting BOTH sources will give you white text with inclusions. This is what we want. Set the RESULT to NEW DOCUMENT, and click OK.

13. When the new document opens (it will be untitled2), invert it by choosing IMAGE > INVERT. The result will be black text with a distressed outline on a white background. Cool.

Now, we could be done with this, but as you know, it is much nicer to have that text on its own layer with a transparent background. It can be done!

14. Select All and COPY.

15. In the Channels palette (under the Layers tab), create a New Channel by clicking the notepad icon in the bottom right corner of the palette.

16. PASTE.

17. Making sure that the Alpha Channel (this is the one you just created) is selected, INVERT  the channel (IMAGE > INVERT).

18. In the Layers tab, select the background layer.

19. Before we can proceed, we need to convert the color mode of this image from Multichannel to Grayscale, then to RGB Color. Go to the IMAGE menu and choose MODE > Grayscale. Do this again and choose RGB Color (yes, you have to do this in this order, or you can get unpleasant results if you have images with shades of gray).

20. Next, we need to load our alpha channel. Go to the SELECT menu and choose Load Selection.

21. Select the Alpha channel for this image, and click OK. Your text should be selected! This is much cleaner than trying to use the magic wand, and will automatically select the insides of the letter forms too.

22. Now, we can create our new layer! Go to the LAYER menu and choose NEW > Layer via Cut.

The result is a nice clean copy of the text on a clear layer that can be superimposed, further distorted, faded, or colorized! Very fun!

But wait! Did I mention something about fire? Why yes, yes I did.

In order to set this word on fire, we need to add a couple of additional steps.

Back at step 10, we applied the Spatter filter. In order to set this text on fire, switch to sourceB.psd.

1. In sourceB.psd, apply a Gaussian blur of 4 pixels (FILTER > Gaussian Blur).

2. Go to sourceA.psd.

3. Open the Calculations dialog box (IMAGE > CALCULATIONS). Set source 1 to sourceA.psd, and source 2 to sourceB.psd.  Check the Invert box for source B. Set the blending to Multiply 100%. Click OK to continue.

4. Now we have a white halo outlining our text. Go to the IMAGE menu and choose MODE > GRAYSCALE.

5. Now we need to index our image. Go to the IMAGE menu and choose MODE > INDEXED COLOR. Make sure that the number of colors is set to 256. Click OK to convert.

6. Go back to the IMAGE menu and choose MODE > COLOR TABLE. This will allow you to assign a table of colors to an image in order to replace the original indexed table. Choose Black Body and click OK.

Whoa. Flammage. If you want to add more realistic fire tendrils, use the smudge tool on sourceB.

Way too much fun! Once you have a handle on how calculations work, you can create some very interesting effects. Again, MODERATION, my young paduwan learner....