Creating text effects in Photoshop is a relatively easy process, yet adds dynamism to your images. We demonstrate the best methods in our Adobe Photoshop courses.
To create the effect illustrated here first create a new document, 1600 by 700 pixels, for example, with a resolution of 150 ppi, which will be adequate for in-house printing. Next change the colours to the default of black and white, and go to the top Edit drop-down menu to choose Fill. Change the setting to Black and hit OK. You now have a black canvas on which to create your dynamic text.
Now select the Type tool and type some words – we have chosen the word INSPIRED in this example. Use a sans serif font like Bank Gothic and change the text colour to  light grey; make the text 100 points in height.
Next click on the Layer Style(fx) button at the bottom of the Layers panel and choose Gradient Overlay. Select a black and white gradient with a layer blending mode of Normal; Size 90 and Scale 115, and tick Reverse. Alternatively try the Overlay blending mode.
Now we press the Control button on our keyboard and click on the text layer’s thumbnail in order to load the text shapes as a selection. Also create a new layer and press Alt (Mac: Option) and the Backspace button to Fill with the foreground colour. Go to the Select menu and choose Transform Selection. Click on the Aspect Ratio Chain and change the Height to 102%, and hit the Enter key. This will scale up the selection by 102%. Now hit the Backspace key to delete, whereupon Photoshop cuts out most of it, making the text look three-dimensional.
To add more of the 3D effect choose the Layer Style button again and select Gradient Overlay with settings of: Normal, Opacity 100, leave Reverse unticked and hit OK. Then deselect (Ctrl+D). You may encounter a problem at this stage on the inner corners of the letter N. In this case zoom in and use the Polygonal Lasso with no Feather value to select the problem area. Next use the Clone Stamp tool to add any lost details.
To add the blue hue to the text first create a New Adjustment Layer from the bottom of the layers panel. Select Hue/saturation and tick Colourize. Use the following settings as a start: 210, 40, -20 > OK.
For the cinematic flares create a new layer and use the Brush tool to choose the flare brush which we created in an earlier blog post. Try the settings of Brush Tip; Shape; Roundness 50% with size 2000 pixels. Add a white flare shape and a new Layer Style of Outer Glow with a light blue colour. Change the layer blending mode to Hard Light with an opacity of 100 and a Glow Size of 2 pixels, and hit OK. Use Ctrl+T to stretch it out  – this also adds a blurring effect. Duplicate the layer, scale it and Flip Horizontal. You could also reduce the brush size and add a small flare at bottom of letter P. Press Alt (Mac: Option) and drag to copy the effect.
Many more tips and techniques can be found at the Adobe website. And see many examples of our clients’ work on our Facebook page.
Other related Photoshop Blog Posts:

• Photoshop interface
  
• Photoshop for fashion
• Photoshop deep etching
• Photoshop animated gif
• Photoshop actions