Since I’m not about to go out and spray paint my website on the side of a city wall, I figured I could at least simulate the look in Photoshop. With the help of some awesome brushes from Bittbox and Deviant Art and a cool font I found at Dafont. The effect is rather easy to create, here’s how…
This tutorial has been updated to include the vanishing point filter thanks to the advice of Andre and Erika. I also took the liberty of adding a couple of extra steps to help improve the realism.
Step 1
Find a picture of a brick wall or a building that you’d like to use as a background. The one I used can be downloaded here. Create a new document in Photoshop at the size you’d like and place the bricks on the top layer.
Step 2
Step 3
Add a thick stroke to your text. Open up the layer style window by double-clicking next to the layer name.
Step 4
We need to alter the perspective of this text to make it work with this wall. Right click on the text layer and choose Convert to a Smart Object from the options that appear.
Step 5
Press ctrl, click on the thumbnail next to your text layer’s name, this will select that layer, hit ‘ctrl, c’ to copy that layer to the clipboard. Now hide the layer by clicking on the eye next to the layer. Hit ‘ctrl, d’ to deselect your selection. Click to add a new layer to the top and name it ‘perspective text’ or something of that nature. This is were you will place your text after using vanishing point.
Step 6
With the ‘perspective text’ layer selected click Filter->Vanishing Point. With the create plane tool selected, click for the four points of the perspective. Use the brick lines to help line things up. Also make sure the grid is large enough to hold all your text.
Step 7
Hit ‘ctrl, v’ to paste in your text. Now hit ‘ctrl, t’ and transform your text into place. When you have it the way you like click OK.
Step 8
Make a new layer and place it behind your text layer. Then grab a splatter brush and use the same color as the stroke on your text. I used these brushes, for this effect. Dab some paint so it drips a little below the text and add some small splatters around.
Step 9
Merge the splatters and the text layers by highlighting both the layers, right clicking on one and choosing ‘merge layers. Ctrl, click on the thumbnail in the layer palette next to the name of the newly merged layer to create a selection of just the text and splatters. Now click on the bricks layer, and hit ‘ctrl, c’ to copy just the bricks that are below the text and splatters that you have selected. Create a new layer at the very top of the palette and name it something like ‘brick overlay’. Press ‘ctrl, v’ to paste the bricks on this new layer. Press ‘ctrl, shift, u’ to desaturate this layer. Change the blend mode to hard light and the opacity to 80%.
Step 10
Add a layer mask to the ‘prespective text’ layer. Now grab some of your favorite grunge brushes. I used these brushes from Bittbox. Change your foreground color to black and with the grunge brushes paint away some of the mask revealing some of the brick layer below. Be subtle with this step.
Step 11
The effect is pretty sick already. Let’s just add a little more illusion of depth. Make a new layer at the top and name it ’shadows’. Grab the gradient tool make a radial gradient go from gray to white. Click on the right side and drag to the left, creating the gradient. Change the blend mode to linear burn and the opacity to 75%.
This is a really effective and fairly simple to create text effect. I hope you can find some use for this in your own projects. If you have any questions or comments, don’t hesitate to use the comment form below.
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July 12th, 2008 at 7:44 am
for the correct perspective of the graffiti I would have used the “vanishing point” feature, but anyway great and simple tutorial…
July 12th, 2008 at 10:39 am
I was just about to say… you might want to check out vanishing point and maybe dropping the opacity/changing the blending mode to overlay or something… because graffiti isn’t quite THAT bold on brick.
Nice tut, overall, though.
July 12th, 2008 at 11:51 am
Thanks Andre and Erika for the great advice! I just finished updating this tutorial to add in the vanishing point filter, as well as some extra steps to help with the realism.
July 15th, 2008 at 8:52 am
hi! i’m a newbie in photoshop. i have the CS2 version installed in my laptop. i’m trying to follow the steps above but got stock in the part where the text is required to be “converted to smart object.” the only option i get is “Group into new smart object.” Is that the same?
July 15th, 2008 at 9:33 am
Hi Collette,
Yeah that is OK. You just need to get the text on one layer so that you can use ‘vanishing point’. I hope this helps you get through the rest of this tutorial, if you have anymore questions, don’t hesitate to ask.
July 29th, 2008 at 8:06 pm
Hi, I’m having some trouble with step 9 I’m not sure exactly what I’m supposed to be doing at this part. Maybe I’m just confused. Any help would be great thanks
July 29th, 2008 at 8:21 pm
Hi Brennan,
I re-worded step 9 to be a little more detailed hopefully that helps. Basically you are merging both the splatters and the text onto one layer. Then you select the layer by ctrl clicking on the thumbnail of the newly merged layer. Then click on the brick layer, now when you hit ctrl c to copy; you will only copy the bricks that are below the selection you made for the text and splatters. Create a new layer at the top, paste the selection, desaturate it, and play around w/ the blend mode. This step gives the graffiti the appearance of texture and actually being on the brick wall. Let me know if all goes well.
August 6th, 2008 at 1:03 am
I am having a problem copying and pasting the text into the Vanishing Point Feature. I have photoshop CS3 extended. I attempt to copy the text by pressing ctrl+c but i am not sure if it copies because when i try to paste it nothing shows up.???
August 6th, 2008 at 7:41 am
Hi Mark,
Here’s a couple of things to check:
Did you convert the text layer to a smart object?
I just noticed in step 5 I said to right click on the thumbnail next to the layer’s name instead of what you should do, which is ctrl, click. When you ctrl, click you will see just the text from that layer selected. Did that selection show up?
After you copied the text did you deselect it and create a new layer? Were you on that new layer when you went into the vanishing point filter?
I hope using these problem solving steps helps. Sometimes finding something like this is like finding a needle in a hay stack. I would also be more than happy to look at your .psd file if you’d like to email it over, to try and find why it won’t paste in vanishing point.
August 6th, 2008 at 10:36 am
I am sure I did everything you said to do right… But it just doesn’t want to copy to clipboard. I will try ctrl + clicking to see if that works…
August 6th, 2008 at 11:43 am
Mark,
That is most likely why you can’t paste it in the vanishing point filter. If you don’t select the text (with ctrl, click) then there will be nothing to paste. Let me know if you get things to work.
August 6th, 2008 at 12:12 pm
thanks a lot. Ctrl + clicking worked. Great tutorial. It’s good that you update it frequently and reply to questions. Again, thank-you
August 6th, 2008 at 12:18 pm
Mark, your welcome. So glad you got it to work.
August 17th, 2008 at 1:25 pm
Awesome tutorial… The effect is great, and the tutorial is easy to follow. Thanks a lot!
August 18th, 2008 at 8:20 am
Thanks for the tutorial, simple but powerful :]
August 18th, 2008 at 1:50 pm
Hi, this is cool. Love how easily you can create an effect like this. Well worded and easy to follow. Thank you.
August 23rd, 2008 at 7:27 am
Hi!
What kind of font did you use at Dafont? What was the fonts name?
regards
August 23rd, 2008 at 9:14 am
Sumi, The font is called Amsterdam Graffiti. You can download it here.
September 2nd, 2008 at 3:10 pm
i dont get it with the Vanishing Point thing, cant get the text copied into Vanishing Point. i have read your tutorial peace for peace, but still cant get it to work. and i have read your “help mail” , still cant make it work. and by the way, what do u mean with tumbnail? the locker above the text layer or what?
Glad if u can help me
September 2nd, 2008 at 3:56 pm
Hi Tobbe,
The thumbnail I referred to is the small image of the layer within the layer palette just to the left of the text. When you hold down ctrl and click the mouse button on the thumbnail image of that layer (in this case the graffiti text layer) this will select the layer. Then you can copy it (ctrl + c) and bring those pixels into the vanishing point feature. For more info, please refer to my comment in response to Mark. Or check out this link to another similar good tutorial about using vanishing point in this manner: http://www.photoshoplab.com/writing-on-the-wall-cs2-vanishing-point.html. I hope this helps.
September 4th, 2008 at 8:57 am
hi
October 3rd, 2008 at 4:08 am
Hi Andrew,
Great tutorial and just to say I think it’s great that you have the patience to reply and help everyone out when they are struggling - nice one mate.
Keep up the good work!
Gareth
October 3rd, 2008 at 7:17 am
@Gareth I really appreciate the kind words. I definitely try to respond to everyone, I designed this blog as a resource where designers could learn, get ideas, and get help. That includes trying to answer all their questions. I try not to miss any
October 20th, 2008 at 11:16 am
i think its great its just like real you dont have to change anything in my opinion
but advices are good everytime;)
November 18th, 2008 at 4:58 am
I have some dout .i dont have the option convert to convert to smart object /group to smart object.I have the photoshop version 7.Is it because of this version pls clear my douts.
November 18th, 2008 at 5:21 am
I had go through the link of the font .I would like to download some fonts to work with it in photoshope.How i get the amsterdam graffit as one of the font in my font list in photoshope ,wat step i should i follow. I dont know how to get it.
November 18th, 2008 at 8:23 am
@sreelekshmi Grab the font you’d like to use at a place like dafont and download it. Unzip it if needed and place it in your systems font folder. On windows that’s located here: C:\WINDOWS\Fonts Next time you restart Photoshop, you should see the font available.
November 18th, 2008 at 8:25 am
@sreelekshmi Unfortunately smart objects aren’t an option on PS7, I believe they started with CS or maybe it was CS2.