TECHNIQUES CREATE ICE EFFECT TYPE
QUICK TIP
Creating an ice effect isn’t an exact science. This tutorial gives you the suggested steps and settings to
use but a lot of it will be down to personal judgement and experimentation. Don’t be afraid to tinker,
adjust and carve up the layers until they give you the effect you want.04
INSERT THE TEXT
Merge all of the layers together and forget about it. In fact, better
yet, click on the eye icon in the layers panel and hide it altogether. Create a
new layer on top and fill it in black again using the Paint Bucket (G). Type
in your text using the Type tool (T) – I’m using Impact but feel free to use
any font that you like. Adjust the tracking setting in the Characters panel,
Window>Character, to change the spacing in between the letters.05
CREATE A CLIPPING MASK
Right-click on the text layer in the Layers panel and select Rasterize Type. Use
the Eraser (E) with a Hard Round brush setting to round off the corners of the letters.
Make a copy of this text layer and hide the original – we’ll need it later. Drag in the ice
texture into the canvas. Place the ice texture layer on top of the copied text layer.
Right-click on the ice texture layer in the Layers panel and select Create Clipping Mask.
The ice texture will show through the text.06
APPLY THE FIRST ADJUSTMENT LAYER
Select the ice texture layer and text layer
in the Layers panel, right-click on them and select
Merge Layers. This will lock in the clipping mask,
which means that you won’t be able to move the
ice texture layer through the clipping mask
anymore. To remove the colours in the ice text,
apply a Black & White adjustment layer by clicking
on the circular icon at the bottom of the Layers
panel and select Black & White. Adjust the settings
to the suggested values in the screenshot.07
BOOST IT WITH ANOTHER LAYER
To boost the contrast in the ice text, add
another adjustment layer. Click on the circular icon
at the bottom of the Layers panel again and this
time select Levels. Play with the settings until you
get intense areas of black and white. The suggested
values in the screenshot are a good starting point
but feel free to adjust the settings according to
what’s right for your image. The more contrast you
can get at this point the better – it will help to build
the feeling of transparency later on.08
ADD MORE TEXTURE
To add some more texture to the ice text, unhide the original text layer and repeat Steps 5 to 7. This
time however, make sure that you use a different area of ice through your clipping mask. Merge these new
layers and place the layer above the ice text layer. Change the blending mode of this new layer to Hard Light.
You should have more areas of white and black and the contrast level should have greatly increased.