Liquid Text Photoshop Tutorial
In this Photoshop tutorial I am going to teach you how to create liquid text. Liquid text created in Photoshop looks super cool and it is surprisingly easy to do. So why don’t we get started?
First of all we need to find an image that we are going to put our liquid text on. You want something with some pattern on it so that the liquid that you create can distort it. I used the wood grain image below (click for a much bigger version).
Once you have your background image loaded up switch over to your channels palette and create a new channel. In this newly created channel you need to create your text. I used a font called Tree Frog, try and find something that is kind of liquidy looking. In this channel I also added a few water droplets to spice things up a bit. This is what my finished channel looks like.
Now we need to create the displacement map that we are going to use when we run the glass filter in a few steps. Duplicated the channel that you created in the last step. Once you have the channel duplicated we need to blur it a bit. Go to Filters/Blur/Gaussian Blur, I used a value of 7 for the blur. The resulting channel should look like this.
The glass filter, which we are about to use, requires a separate image to be used we need to duplicate this channel and save it as a standalone image. To do this click the little arrow on top of the channels window and from the menu that drops down choose “Duplicate Channel”. After you click duplicate channel another window will popup. From this window that pops up from the drop down menu choose new and press ok. The image you created in the channel will now popup in it’s own window. Save the image that pops up as a PSD file, it doesn’t matter where but remember what you called it so that you can find it later. I named mine displacementmap.psd.
Switch back to the original image. Go back to your layers palette and duplicate your background image. In your layers palette you should now have a layer called background and one called background copy. Now lets break out the glass filter. The glass filter can be found by going to Filter/Distort/Glass. When you choose glass a new screen will popup, on this screen you need to load your displacementmap.psd as the texture. Press the little arrow next to the drop down menu and choose load and browse to wherever it was that you saved your image in the previous step. Fiddle with the Distortion and smoothness levels to taste. I used a Distortion level of 10 and a Smoothness level of 4, keep scaling at 100%. Your image should now look like this (click for bigger). Rename this layer, which is currently called “background copy” to “Glassy”.
Now we need the original, unblurred copy of our text in the layers palette. To do this go back to your channels palette and ctrl-click the unblurred image which has your text and water drops on it to choose its selection. Go back to your layers palette, create a new layer between the background layer and the Glassy layer, and with the selection still active fill the selection with black. Your layers palette should now look like the image below.
We need to join the text layer with the glass layer. To do this right click the Glassy layer and choose “Create Clipping Mask”. Your layers palette should now look like this.
Now lets have some fun and really make this pop. We are going to be doing a few different layer styles. Select the layer that has your text on it (the middle layer) and open up your layer styles window, lets start with bevel and emboss (Layer/Layer Style/Bevel and Emboss).
For bevel and emboss I used the following settings:
Now lets add a drop shadow. I used the following settings, for color, click around your background image until you find a color that you like.
Next, lets add a bit of an outer glow to really make things stand out. Once again, here are the settings that I used.
And finally lets add a bit of an inner glow.
With all of the above layer styles feel free to experiment and try different things, there is no set way to do this, just play with the settings until you achieve a look that you like.
Here is the final result. Make sure you click the image on the right to see the full size version. Pretty nice huh?
Any questions, comments or feedback please fill out the form below.
Check out the comments below to see how you can make the water look oily.
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Filed Under Tutorials | 43 Questions/Comments |
Comments & Questions
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September 30, 2009 12:53 PM
What do you choose when you make your new channel? masked area or selected area? I keep getting lost in that step.
thanks.
September 30, 2009 12:59 PM
Can you be more specific at which point in the tutorial you are referring to?
September 30, 2009 1:51 PM
Sure.
“Once you have your background image loaded up switch over to your channels palette and create a new channel. In this newly created channel you need to create your text. I used a font called Tree Frog, try and find something that is kind of liquidy looking. In this channel I also added a few water droplets to spice things up a bit. This is what my finished channel looks like.”
You say to create a new channel, but you have options on the popup there – so I was getting confused.
thanks.
September 30, 2009 2:47 PM
I am not seeing a popup. Open the image, switch over to the channels palette and hit the “create new channel” button. Check out this image.
Also, what version of PS are you using?
October 6, 2009 8:07 PM
I am unable to blur the channel. I am using cs3.
October 6, 2009 9:38 PM
I am going to need more to go on than that, there is no reason you shouldn’t be able to blur a channel.
October 8, 2009 2:32 AM
i didnt understand this part “Go back to your layers palette, create a new layer between the background layer and the Glassy layer, and with the selection still active fill the selection with black”
October 8, 2009 9:58 AM
Very nice. i like this text effect alot
October 8, 2009 10:02 AM
mohammad, what part of what you quoted didn’t you understand? What can you not achieve?
October 15, 2009 1:40 AM
“Now go back to your layers palette and duplicated you background image. In your layers palette you should now have a layer called background and one called background copy.”
Is this on the displacementmap.psd…because if so, I cannot create a new layer as the background is locked, which also will not allo the glass effect as it is greyed out.
Any ideas?
October 15, 2009 2:02 AM
no worries…i’ve figured it out…it wasn’t the displacementmap.psd it was the original image and the reason why I couldn’t use the glass technique is because my image wasn’t rasterized. Thank you!
November 5, 2009 6:23 PM
thanks bro,…
November 12, 2009 11:28 AM
How did u add the water drops?
November 12, 2009 11:58 AM
Hugo, I just used the brush tool and did them by hand.
November 13, 2009 2:50 AM
Wow, that’s cool !. Looks like real water over there
January 3, 2010 10:35 PM
Can anyone update these instructions for use with CS4?
January 4, 2010 1:19 AM
There is no need to update this for CS4, the tutorial works just fine in CS4, I just tested it to make sure and it works great.
January 4, 2010 7:08 AM
In CS4, my glass filter no longer has an option to load in textures, so does that mean you just skip the step of making the displacement psd? I’m also trying to apply an oily rainbow effect to the water droplets. Any suggestions on how to trap colors in the water?
January 4, 2010 8:16 AM
Sorry Moe, I figured out the liquid technique (still getting used to the new palette layouts). Would still love to figure out how to add color effects inside the droplets.
January 4, 2010 11:03 AM
In the inner glow step use a rainbow gradient and you may get the effect you’re after. Here is a quick and dirty mock-up using that technique: Rainbows
January 4, 2010 1:21 PM
That’s exactly the effect am after, maybe with just a little more color pushing through. Mind if I ask what settings you used in the Inner Glow to achieve the radiance.
January 4, 2010 1:45 PM
Rainbow
January 4, 2010 1:49 PM
And just for fun
January 6, 2010 1:29 PM
I really don’t get anything about this tutorial. I read it, but nothing works for me. it’s badly explained. Could you not make a 5min video tutorial of this? would be much easier to follow this cool effect.
January 6, 2010 2:19 PM
Daniel, I think the problems lies in you and not the tutorial as hundreds, if not thousands of people have been able to get it work just fine. If you can explain to me where you are having a problem I’ll try to help you. What version of Photoshop are you using?
January 6, 2010 2:25 PM
I’m using cs4 extended version. It’s the channel pallete, when I create a new layer to write the text on. i can’t put text in it. and on the layer pallete, where did the layer under “glass” come from? the rest I understand, but the first part is hard for me to understand
January 6, 2010 2:53 PM
When you switch to the channels palette, hit the “New Channel” icon see this image. The newly created channel will be called “Alpha 1″ The text tool should work just fine on this layer, I can’t see why it wouldn’t.
The layer under the glass layer was created by me, I just clicked the “new layer” button (same place as the new channel button just on the layers palette). If the newly created layer doesn’t show up between them, you can drag the layers to whatever order you want. Or just make sure you are on the bottom layer when you create it because newly created layers are placed above the layer you are currently working on.
January 6, 2010 3:30 PM
okey, thanks for the help!
January 13, 2010 8:45 AM
uhm u should probably show how to get the hardwood background from
January 13, 2010 10:10 AM
Cameron, it’s just a photograph and you can get right here on my site (just click the picture, it brings up a larger version).
January 23, 2010 7:10 PM
I can´t apply the glass effect… do i have to click in one specific channel to aplly the effect before go back to layers or just click the background copy and apply the effect? Please explain me this part
January 24, 2010 10:57 AM
Adelaida, you apply the glass filter on the background copy layer.
February 18, 2010 2:21 PM
Excelentes efectos.
Lo que quisiera saber es en que formato puedo guardar los trabajos para efectos de impresión digital y para impresión offset.
Si puedes enviarme tu respuesta a mi correo te lo agradecería.
Hasta pronto
February 27, 2010 7:38 AM
Loved it thx lol
February 27, 2010 7:39 AM
I always find it incredable that people dont read properly lol
March 13, 2010 1:14 PM
i can’t make the layer between Glassy And Background to be like yours….please help me:)
March 13, 2010 1:54 PM
DarkyAngel, you are going to have to help me to help you because what you posted tells me absolutely nothing about the problem that you are having.
March 14, 2010 12:30 AM
i did it, thank you for help..:D