A_P_TPC_Vol11_2015_

LEARN HOW TO GIVE YOUR TEXT A PHOTOREALISTIC ICE EFFECT

PRODUCE ICE

EFFECT TYPE

R

obert Frost once said the world will end in

either fire or ice; consumed by passion or

frozen by rationalism. I have a slightly

different variation on this; creating fire and

ice effects in Photoshop can sometimes feel like the

end of the world.

Fire and ice are notoriously difficult to replicate

convincingly in Photoshop – the graveyard of

half-hearted attempts in the images section on

the internet is a testament to this. Perhaps it’s the

fact that they are both forces of nature and

therefore their unpredictability is difficult to

capture. Or perhaps it’s the fact that both

elements are non-consistently translucent,

PLATE TECTONICS

CREATE A BACKGROUND FOR YOUR TYPE

01

FILL THE CANVAS

Fill the canvas in black using the Paint

Bucket (G). Drag a cracked earth texture into the

canvas. Extend the texture by drawing a boundary

using the Polygonal Lasso tool (L) in the areas you

need to fill. Select Content-Aware under the Fill

command, Edit>Fill, and Photoshop will use the

current image to fill in the blank areas.

COMBINE ICE AND

FIRE EFFECTS

WORK IN

PROGRESS

Progress 1: Set the scene

Progress 2: Create an ice effect

Progress 3: Add steam

and condensation

ANDY HAU

http://www.andyhau.com

@andykwhau

OUR EXPERT

Andy Hau is a London-based

architect, designer and the owner of

A.H.A Design. For him, design is an

escape from the futility of modern

life, not an endorsement of it.

revealing and concealing at their own discretion

under a billowing diaphanous cloud of smoke and

condensation – an effect that is extremely hard to

replicate manually. Too much passion and the

effect is overwhelmingly unrealistic, too much

rationalism and the image ends up looking stiff

and unconvincing.

Always up for a challenge, I am going to up the

ante by combining both of these dastardly difficult

effects in one image. Using Photoshop’s powerful

adjustments layers and equal measures of passion

and rationalism, I am going to prove that creating

these effects convincingly doesn’t have to feel like

the end of the world.

GRAPHICS AND TYPE