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As always, I hope the week is treating you well
thus far. June has made its soggy arrival, and thus far I've
only been fishing once. Well, you can't really call it fishing,
as the streams were so far out of their banks (high, fast, muddy
water) that I dipped the line in 5 times maybe. The solution?
Red Lobster! But seriously, I'm thankful for the moisture but I
really really really really NEED to go fishing. For those who
need to justify the act of killing and eating poor defenseless
denizens of the waterways, blame it on an out of whack
hunter-gatherer instinct. I'd argue that you haven't lived until
you've had smoked trout for breakfast.
While perusing the Photoshop Discussion List
this morning, a question was posed about applying filters to
layer styles. That is a very good question… and a few ideas
popped into my head on the subject, but most of these involved
flattening the styled layer and then applying filters. Simply
put, there is no easy way to do it, at least not in a way that
would answer the original question posed.
There is a way, however, to pull a Style effect,
such as a drop shadow or such, from the layer it was applied to
and give it its' own layer, on which it may be manipulated,
edited, or set on fire.
Just for fun, let's make a quick, cool text
style:
1) Open Photoshop. I'm using PS 7 for this
tutorial.
2) Create a new image. If it isn't already, fill
the background layer with white.
3) Create a new Layer.
4) On the new layer, enter some large type with
the Type Mask Tool.
5) Select 2 somewhat opposing colors for the
fore and background colors.
6) Fill the Text Selection with one of the
colors.
7) Let's set up a style for this layer. Click
the Add Layer Style icon on the bottom of the layers palette,
and click on Bevel/Emboss.
8) Apply a bevel with settings similar to those
seen in the capture below.
9) Now some Inner Shadow:
10) Inner Glow:
11) Lastly, let's add a Stroke:
Here's our type thus far:
12) If you like the style, open the Layer Styles
Dialog Box. On the right hand side, save it, name it, and then
it will appear in the Layer Styles Palette.
Ok, that was exciting… but what does it have to
do with the original premise of this tutorial? In this case,
probably not much… yet. But say I have another layer with styles
applied above the type layer? Case in point, take a look at
this.
In this case, I've added a beveled and drop
shadowed wavey pattern over the face of the text. The idea here
is to add to the type's illusion of transparency by having the
drop shadow for the wavey layer seen inside the text. The
problem is the drop shadow also appears outside the boundary of
the text, an effect I do not want. Solution? Here it is!
Right click on the layer style inside the Layers
Palette. In the menu that pops up, go down the list and select
‘Create Layer'. This will drop all the style effects in their
own individual layers where you can manipulate them.
Command/CTRL+Click the text layer in the palette
to bring up the type
selection again.
Go to Select>Inverse.
In the Layers Palette, select the layer that now
holds the Drop Shadow from the style, and hit Delete. This will
wipe away the excess drop shadow from outside the type boundary,
while still allowing it to show up inside the plastic/glassy
text.
That's about all this week. Until next time,
I'll see you at Action Fx! |