The Professional Photoshop Book - Volume 7 2015

CREATE YOUR OWN PAINTED TYPOGRAPHY BY MIXING

TRADITIONAL PAINT WITH PHOTOSHOP TECHNIQUES

PAINT STRIKING

TYPE EFFECTS

C

ombining traditional paint with digital

Photoshop techniques is a creative way

to take your typography to the next level.

Follow this tutorial to discover a

relatively simple way to create a paint based text

effect that is ultimately flexible. This is a mix of

analogue and Photoshop to give a hand rendered

digital look that is suitable for various applications,

PREPARE TO PAINT

START WITH PAINTING STOKES WITH ACRYLIC PAINT

from campaign headlines, through to web headers

and straplines.

You will need to go back to basics and

begin with a hand painted technique, then finish off

and manipulate digitally. The result will vary

depending on your chosen paint technique and the

choice of type style, but you should end up with

something wonderfully creative and painterly.

01

START ANALOGUE

Get a set of acrylic paints and add dots

to a plate, then pick up your paintbrush and

simply dip it into numerous colours. Now,

swoosh it across the paper until you get a mix of

all the different colours. This will take a

little experimenting to get right, but it’s all part of

the fun of mixing analogue and digital together.

02

CLEAN IT UP

Scan your paint samples, remember to let

them dry first though! Then remove the background.

Simply add a black layer behind the paint and delete

all the white sections. The black is there so you can

see any remaining white more easily. This will take a

little while and can be tedious, but bear with it. Do

this with a few so you have a good selection of

samples to work with.

03

ENHANCE IT DIGITALLY

You should have an idea of how your piece

will look and what colours you are going to use from

the initial colours used within the paint phase. You

can however adjust colour to your choice using Hue

and Saturation. This is under the Image>Adjustment

menu. Don’t over saturate though, just add a little

spark and contrast to the swooshes.

FROM TRADITIONAL PAINT

TO DIGITAL MASTERPIECE

WORK IN

PROGRESS

Progress 1: Start with strokes

Progress 2: Paint the text

Progress 3: Finishing touches

NEIL DUERDEN

http://www.neilduerden.co.uk

@neilduerden

OUR EXPERT

On FileSilo you will find a selection of

paint strokes that you can use to

follow along with this tutorial, or you

can create your own if you prefer.

A self confessed Mac monkey,

exceeding briefs for blue chip

clients globally.

SOURCE FILES

Paint striking type effects

The Professional Photoshop Book 163

162-167 Paint Type Tutorial.indd 163 06/10/2015 15:24