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WET PAINT TYPE

Need a liquid logotype? Then try this Photoshop technique to create wetwords. First you pick a script typeface design. Then you add some dripsand drops around it. Use the Plaster filter to create a soft rounded effecton the type.Try some of the variations for different wet effects. Finally,you add the color and ...

1. Create a new file. Select theChannels palette and create anew channel named mask . Weare going to create black andwhite artwork in the channels,instead of layers, to giveourselves more flexibility withcoloring and highlighting thefinal art.

2. Be sure that your foregroundcolor is set to white and themask channel is selected. Usethe type tool to create yourtype. Position the type beforeyou deselect it. Type created inchannels is only a selection, nota separate layer that can beedited and moved later.

Liquid typefaces The best typefaces touse for this techniqueare script or calli-graphic. If you want aslightly eroded look,choose a face withmore pronounced

thicks and thins. Thetypeface used in thisillustration is Ex Ponto.

Luanne Seymour Cohen,Creative Director at

Adobe Systems, getswet and wild withthe Plaster filter in

Adobe Photoshop 4.0ADVANCED

Shortcuts Throughout this

document, Command/Ctrl means Commandon the Macintosh andCtrl on Windows,Option/Alt meansOption on the Macintoshand Alt on Windows.

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Wet Paint Type 2

3. Use a paintbrush to add a fewwhite drips and drops aroundthe type. They wont look muchlike drips at this point, but theywill turn into small blobs of paint later. Weve now createdthe mask that we will use to bringcrisp, sharp edges back to ourtype after we use the plaster filter.

The Plaster filter The Plaster filter usesthe foreground colorfor the shadows andthe background colorfor the highlights. Itdoesnt matter whatcolor the image is to

start with, the resultswill be created withthe foreground andbackground colors. Wewont get good resultson layers with transpar-ency, so we are doingthis first part in achannel in order tocreate the type on alayer later.

5. Select Filter > Sketch >Plaster. Choose the lightingposition you want. Rememberthat since this is a channel, theimage is in negative form. Inthis example, I want the finalartwork to have highlights on

the top. The Plaster filter putsthe foreground color in theshadow areas and the backgroundcolor in the highlight areas. Playaround with the values on thesliders. Click OK when you aresatisfied with the result.

4. Create a duplicate of themask channel. You can do thisquickly by holding the Option/Alt key while dragging the maskchannel icon down to the NewChannel icon. Doing so bringsup the dialog box to duplicatethe channel. Name the dupli-cate plaster type.

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Wet Paint Type 3

8. Choose a foreground colorfor the type and fill the selec-tion (Option/Alt+Delete/Backspace). I recommenddarker colors for this step.

6. Return to the Layers paletteand click on the backgroundlayer to view it. Option/Alt-clickon the new layer icon to create anew layer. Name it wet type.

7. With the wet type layerselected, load the plaster typechannel as a selection. You cando this from the Channelspalette or from the Select menu.Choose Select > Load Selection.Select plaster type as the Chan-nel. Click OK.

Selection shortcutsIf you want a quick

way to load channelswithout using menus,try this. Separate theLayers palette from theChannels palette. Whenyou are on a certainlayer and you need toload a selection, holdthe Command/Alt keyand click on thechannel name in thechannel palette. Thecursor will change to

the selection cursor toremind you that it willnow load the selection.

Fill shortcuts To fill with 100% of theforeground color, pressOption/Alt+Delete/Backspace. To fill with100% of the backgroundcolor, press Ctrl+Option/Alt+Delete/Backspace.

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Wet Paint Type 4

9. The Plaster filter softens andspreads the letter forms. This isfine for a plaster effect but forliquid, we need a crisper,cleaner edge. Use the magicwand (set to anti-aliased, 32tolerance) to select the trans-parent background of the wettype layer. Choose Select >Similar to add any protectedareas that you might have missed.

10. To encompass a little moreof the types new bulgy shape,expand the selection. ChooseSelect > Modify > Expand.Expand the selection by 1 pixel.If your image is very highresolution, you might want totry 2. Youll have to experimentwith this value on your own.

11. Invert the selection bychoosing Select > Inverse(Command/Ctrl+Shift+I).

Select similarOnce youve created aselection, you can addto it automatically usingthe Select Similar com-mand. Photoshop ana-lyzes the colors of thepixels currently select-ed and proceeds to

select all the otherpixels in the image of those same values. Inthis example, we wantall the white areasselected. Because theselection is anti-aliased,it also picked up theoff-white areas alongthe edges of the letters.

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Wet Paint Type 5

13. Deselect and evaluate theresult. You may like it as is oryou might want to increase thecontrast and sharpen up thesmooth gradations. If so, usethe Unsharp Mask filter. SeeVariation 1 for this effect.

12. Next we will make a layermask with only the selectedareas showing through themask. Click on the layer maskicon in the Layers palette, orchoose Select > Save Selectionand select wet type Mask as thechannel. This automaticallycreates a layer mask with theselection. Basically, we arehiding the fuzzy edges with thislayer mask.

Variation 1: You can increasethe contrast and make it lookglossier by using the UnsharpMask filter. In this example Iused the following values:Amount: 440%Radius: 0.6 pixels

Threshold: 8 levels

Unsharp mask Unsharp mask isa traditional filmcompositing techniqueused to sharpen edgesin an image.The Radiusvalue determines thenumber of pixels

surrounding the edgespixels that will besharpened. Increasingthe Threshold valueallows you to protectsome areas of yourimage from the noiseintroduced by sharpen-ing. Usually thethreshold is increasedfor skin tones.

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Wet Paint Type 6

Variation 2: For a puddlingpaint effect, try the followingsettings in step 5. The top imagewas created with Image Balanceset at 8 and Smoothness at 12. If you want your letters to looksparsely painted as shown inthe lower image, try using 40for Image Balance and 4 forSmoothness.

Variation 3: To add a shadow of a different color, youll need tomake a copy of the plaster typechannel. Name the new channelshadow . Open the Levels dialog(Command/Ctrl+L) and movethe black input slider to theright. The light pixels remainingin the preview are the areaswhere the shadow will appear inyour image. Experiment withthe values depending on howheavy or light you want the

shadow. In this example, we usedInput Levels of 187, 1.00, 255.

Variation 3 contd.: Repeat steps6 through 13, but name the newlayer shadow . If you want toexperiment with colors, turn onthe Preserve Transparencyoption so you can simply fillthe layer with a new color.

PS4.0 12/97

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