Mancalahour 012: How To Be Textual: A Guide
Back with my second tutorial, which is actually more of a guide! library_of_sex requested that I please impart my wisdom about my text work and how I achieve it. HER WORDS, NOT MINE.
I want to start out by saying that I really don't feel like I'm any kind of authority on text what-so-ever, so it feels a little weird making a guide like this. Most of what I know about text I learned from other makers' tutorials and font-guides, so if this reads like something you've already seen, I apologize. I can only hope that it's helpful to someone anyway!
This guide assumes some knowledge of Photoshop. I'm using CS5.
1. I keep a notebook. I put this first because I think this is probably my most useful tool when it comes to text. I know I've said this to a few people before when they asked about where I get ideas for graphics. Between me and my monitor is a (very cluttered) strip of desk for my drink, some candles, DVDs, and most importantly, my notebooks. I use these notbooks for everything, but mostly for text ideas! When I hear a snippet of lyrics from a song I like, I write them down in the notebook, especially if they bring to mind a TV show or ship or character. I jot down quotes from a show or movie that I can later use.
Texspiration can come from anywhere, and it's important (for me, anyway) to write it down as soon as it surfaces, because I WILL forget if I procrastinate about it. Yesterday I was looking through my texture folder while making an icon, and a pretty texture brought to mind a common phrase that I wrote down and later used in an icon. WRITE THAT SHIT DOWN, MY FRIENDS.
I also use this notebook to write down fonts that I like so that I can quickly jump to those ones when adding text to something instead of trying out every single font from the drop-down menu until I find one I like.
2. Ask the maker. If you see someone else using a font you really like, ask them what it is! Reading text guides written by others and asking my favorite makers, "Can I ask what font that is?" are the two biggest ways I've found fonts I like. If you want it, ask for it!
3. Experiment. Experiment. Experiment. Even though I have a list of fonts that I love written down (my GO-TO fonts, if you will), I still spend a lot of time clicking through that damn drop-down menu to see if a different font will work! Practice makes perfect or something, and you won't know until you try. So if you're tired of the same old text, it's all trial and error.
4. Know your tools. Now for some pictures! Of course it's important to know what all the little clicky boxes do in Photoshop, right? Right. Let's have a look.
A. This is something I discovered not too long ago (or maybe it was more like rediscovery, who knows.) There's a little drop down menu up there in the corner that can have more options for your fonts. I believe it depends on whether or not they're open type or not? I'm not totally sure. If anyone else knows, feel free to speak up! Anyway, here's what the menu looks like if you click it.
B. Tracking. This number determines how F A R A P A R T your letters/words are.
C. Horizontally Scale. This number determines how short and fat or tall and skinny your letters are! Usually I have this number set somewhere between 75% and 110%.
D. Anti-Alias. Experiment with this box, it determines how smooth/strong/crisp/sharp your text is. Never EVER choose 'none', but you knew that already, right?
There are other boxes that I'm not delving into, but hopefully everybody knows what those are already.
5. Experiment some more! Using the same font in the same style of the same color etc. in one icon can get a little boring. Vary the size in your words. Make some words italic, some bold. Space them differently with the tracking. Play around with it until you think it looks good.
6. Text Color.Everyone probably already knows that I usually go for black or white text, because it matches everything. But if you're going to go with colored text, try to take your colors out of the icon. Another thing I like to do with text is use a Gradient on a Clipping Mask. How about an example? Okay!
Nouvelle Vague 24 px, 100 Tracking, 90% Horizontal Scale, Smooth Anti-alias.
The white on green hurts your eyes a little, right? Let's make it look pretty with a gradient!
Create a new gradient layer on top of your text layer.
+
set to multiply =
That doesn't look right either, does it? But if we right click on our gradient and hit Create Clipping Mask, we get this:
Hey, not too shabby, right?
Now, I want to see more of the colors from the gradient on my text. So I right click on my gradient layer again and choose Rasterize Layer. Then, on my toolbar, I go to Edit >> Free Transform, and I squish my gradient so that it looks like this:
You can also use textures instead of or in addition to gradients in the same way when you use clipping masks, like I did in this icon:
7. Blur. I pretty much always blur my text at least a little.
Rasterize your text layer (Right Click >> Rasterize Type), and then with CTRL held down, I select both the gradient layer and the text layer, right click again >> Merge Layers. Now that my colored text is all one layer, I go to Filter >> Blur >> Box Blur, Radius 1px. Immediately after that, I go up to Edit >> Fade Box Blur, and drag the slider down to 20%.
8. Drop Shadow. This is something I do fairly often with text, because most of the time the icon under your text isn't all one color. You run into problems when your text is too light on the light parts of your icon, or too dark on the dark parts. That's where Drop Shadow comes in.
First of all, duplicate your text layer and make the copy invisible. I always try to keep an un-touched copy around in case I need it, especially when I'm messing with layer style. Double Click your visible text layer. Using #454d24, here are my settings:
And here's what it looks like!:
That drop shadow added a little something, right?
9. Lighting & adjustment layers. If you read my other tutorial, you know how important lighting is too me. If you have a soft light layer or some light blob layers, pull your text under them. It helps make the text look more at home in the icon.
Remember that copy of the text we made before we dropped shadow? Make sure it's on top of your drop-shadowed text, and set it to soft light!
Much better! Now if I add even more contrast and lighting with some black and white brushwork, blurred and set to softlight, I get this:
Sharpen (Filter >> Sharpen >> Sharpen) and then Edit >> Fade Sharpen, and voila! Done!
And that's how I do text!
10. Fonts. Obviously. I'm lazy and I don't feel like tracking down links to fonts, but I have a list of my favorites to share with you guys, and some examples of those fonts on my icons (where applicable), in case you were curious. In most cases you can find these fonts free at dafont or http://www.fonts.com/, or just via google search. If you see something you really like but you can't find it, just let me know. I'll see what I can do about getting it for you. I know how frustrating it can be to want a font when it can't be found!
So I hope this was at least a little helpful to some of you, and I hope I answered your questions, Kim!
I want to start out by saying that I really don't feel like I'm any kind of authority on text what-so-ever, so it feels a little weird making a guide like this. Most of what I know about text I learned from other makers' tutorials and font-guides, so if this reads like something you've already seen, I apologize. I can only hope that it's helpful to someone anyway!
This guide assumes some knowledge of Photoshop. I'm using CS5.
1. I keep a notebook. I put this first because I think this is probably my most useful tool when it comes to text. I know I've said this to a few people before when they asked about where I get ideas for graphics. Between me and my monitor is a (very cluttered) strip of desk for my drink, some candles, DVDs, and most importantly, my notebooks. I use these notbooks for everything, but mostly for text ideas! When I hear a snippet of lyrics from a song I like, I write them down in the notebook, especially if they bring to mind a TV show or ship or character. I jot down quotes from a show or movie that I can later use.
Texspiration can come from anywhere, and it's important (for me, anyway) to write it down as soon as it surfaces, because I WILL forget if I procrastinate about it. Yesterday I was looking through my texture folder while making an icon, and a pretty texture brought to mind a common phrase that I wrote down and later used in an icon. WRITE THAT SHIT DOWN, MY FRIENDS.
I also use this notebook to write down fonts that I like so that I can quickly jump to those ones when adding text to something instead of trying out every single font from the drop-down menu until I find one I like.
2. Ask the maker. If you see someone else using a font you really like, ask them what it is! Reading text guides written by others and asking my favorite makers, "Can I ask what font that is?" are the two biggest ways I've found fonts I like. If you want it, ask for it!
3. Experiment. Experiment. Experiment. Even though I have a list of fonts that I love written down (my GO-TO fonts, if you will), I still spend a lot of time clicking through that damn drop-down menu to see if a different font will work! Practice makes perfect or something, and you won't know until you try. So if you're tired of the same old text, it's all trial and error.
4. Know your tools. Now for some pictures! Of course it's important to know what all the little clicky boxes do in Photoshop, right? Right. Let's have a look.
A. This is something I discovered not too long ago (or maybe it was more like rediscovery, who knows.) There's a little drop down menu up there in the corner that can have more options for your fonts. I believe it depends on whether or not they're open type or not? I'm not totally sure. If anyone else knows, feel free to speak up! Anyway, here's what the menu looks like if you click it.
B. Tracking. This number determines how F A R A P A R T your letters/words are.
C. Horizontally Scale. This number determines how short and fat or tall and skinny your letters are! Usually I have this number set somewhere between 75% and 110%.
D. Anti-Alias. Experiment with this box, it determines how smooth/strong/crisp/sharp your text is. Never EVER choose 'none', but you knew that already, right?
There are other boxes that I'm not delving into, but hopefully everybody knows what those are already.
5. Experiment some more! Using the same font in the same style of the same color etc. in one icon can get a little boring. Vary the size in your words. Make some words italic, some bold. Space them differently with the tracking. Play around with it until you think it looks good.
6. Text Color.Everyone probably already knows that I usually go for black or white text, because it matches everything. But if you're going to go with colored text, try to take your colors out of the icon. Another thing I like to do with text is use a Gradient on a Clipping Mask. How about an example? Okay!
Nouvelle Vague 24 px, 100 Tracking, 90% Horizontal Scale, Smooth Anti-alias.
The white on green hurts your eyes a little, right? Let's make it look pretty with a gradient!
Create a new gradient layer on top of your text layer.
+
set to multiply =
That doesn't look right either, does it? But if we right click on our gradient and hit Create Clipping Mask, we get this:
Hey, not too shabby, right?
Now, I want to see more of the colors from the gradient on my text. So I right click on my gradient layer again and choose Rasterize Layer. Then, on my toolbar, I go to Edit >> Free Transform, and I squish my gradient so that it looks like this:
You can also use textures instead of or in addition to gradients in the same way when you use clipping masks, like I did in this icon:
7. Blur. I pretty much always blur my text at least a little.
Rasterize your text layer (Right Click >> Rasterize Type), and then with CTRL held down, I select both the gradient layer and the text layer, right click again >> Merge Layers. Now that my colored text is all one layer, I go to Filter >> Blur >> Box Blur, Radius 1px. Immediately after that, I go up to Edit >> Fade Box Blur, and drag the slider down to 20%.
8. Drop Shadow. This is something I do fairly often with text, because most of the time the icon under your text isn't all one color. You run into problems when your text is too light on the light parts of your icon, or too dark on the dark parts. That's where Drop Shadow comes in.
First of all, duplicate your text layer and make the copy invisible. I always try to keep an un-touched copy around in case I need it, especially when I'm messing with layer style. Double Click your visible text layer. Using #454d24, here are my settings:
And here's what it looks like!:
That drop shadow added a little something, right?
9. Lighting & adjustment layers. If you read my other tutorial, you know how important lighting is too me. If you have a soft light layer or some light blob layers, pull your text under them. It helps make the text look more at home in the icon.
Remember that copy of the text we made before we dropped shadow? Make sure it's on top of your drop-shadowed text, and set it to soft light!
Much better! Now if I add even more contrast and lighting with some black and white brushwork, blurred and set to softlight, I get this:
Sharpen (Filter >> Sharpen >> Sharpen) and then Edit >> Fade Sharpen, and voila! Done!
And that's how I do text!
10. Fonts. Obviously. I'm lazy and I don't feel like tracking down links to fonts, but I have a list of my favorites to share with you guys, and some examples of those fonts on my icons (where applicable), in case you were curious. In most cases you can find these fonts free at dafont or http://www.fonts.com/, or just via google search. If you see something you really like but you can't find it, just let me know. I'll see what I can do about getting it for you. I know how frustrating it can be to want a font when it can't be found!
So I hope this was at least a little helpful to some of you, and I hope I answered your questions, Kim!