Basic Web 2.0 text tutorial

[Murder he Wrote]

Here's a quick little tutorial teaching how to make some nice looking Web 2.0 styled text. 🙂

1) Create your canvas, I have used 500px Wide by 150px High. I have used a simple gradient background, purely for presentation purposes.



2) Create a new layer (Layer -> New -> Layer...), and use the text tool to create your text. I used "Arial Rounded MT Bold" in size 100pt. It doesn't matter what colour you make the text, as we will be using overlay later on.



3) Right click on the text layer and select "Blending options...". Then apply the following settings:







4) Finally we will add some gloss. Create a new layer, hold the "Ctrl" key, and whilst "Ctrl" is held down click the small black and white "T" icon on the text layer. The blue area of your text should now be selected.



5) Select the "Elliptical Marquee Tool" and whilst holding "Shift Alt", drag a selection from the top right of the text to the bottom left, it should look something like this:





6) Now create another new later, select the paint bucket tool and fill the selected area with Solid white. Then press "Ctrl D" to deselect the outline.



7) Finally, reduce the optacy of the new layer to 20%, and the graphic is complete!




Feel free to share, just remember to leave credit to ChristianBullock.com 🙂

 

[inpaqt]

Thanks for this Christian. ~wink~

 

[1ruleyou]

Thank you Murder he Wrote, This will help a lot of people!!!

 

[gloinus]

Wow! That tutorial helped so much!

Thx a LOT!

 

[socrboy24]

I am trying to do this in Gimp (which I have used for a while) and I really never figured out how to do this effect. Do I have to gradient each letter by itself and then do the outlining or is there a way to do the gradient without covering the holes of the "e" and "o" and "g" and the like?

 

[inpaqt]

I am trying to do this in Gimp (which I have used for a while) and I really never figured out how to do this effect. Do I have to gradient each letter by itself and then do the outlining or is there a way to do the gradient without covering the holes of the "e" and "o" and "g" and the like?

I am not sure you can overlay a gradient on text with GIMP.

 

[socrboy24]

I have just been trying to for the past 5 minutes and it doesn't work in one step like in the tut.

 

[inpaqt]

I have just been trying to for the past 5 minutes and it doesn't work in one step like in the tut.

There probably is a way but it is just much easier on Photoshop. -D-

 

[socrboy24]

I don't have the luxury of owning photoshop so Gimp is the best I can work with.

 

[dremits]

Chelseaboy, are you sure you're holding down Shift+Ctrl when creating the elliptical selection? Works fine on my GIMP. Make sure you release the mouse button before you releasing Shift+ctrl.

I think there is a less destructive way in Photoshop by using the gradient layer effect. In GIMP for a less destructive method try this:

Create a new layer and name it something like 'gradient' or 'shine'. Then right click on your text layer and choose 'Text to Selection'. Then right click on the layer you just created and click 'Create layer mask'. In the following dialog choose 'Selection'. Then make sure that your layer is active instead of the layer mask, by clicking on the thumbnail of the layer so it has a white background around the thumbnail (otherwise you'll be applying the gradient to the layer mask and this is not what we want). Then Select > None. Then just create the elliptical selection on that layer, (but so it encompasses the text you want as well (no need to hold any keys for this selection) and use the gradient with 'FG to Transparent' (making sure white is your Foreground colour). Then use the Opacity slider on that layer to get the effect you want.

 

[socrboy24]

thanks dremits that helped a lot.

 

[Ste]

Great tutorial MhW!

As always though . ~lol~

 

[Murder he Wrote]

Great tutorial MhW!

As always though . ~lol~

You should give it a try, I would like to see your attempt ~razz~

 

[inpaqt]

lol

 

[socrboy24]

Here is my first try in Gimp:



At MHW: I am going to post a tutorial on how to do this in Gimp and will give you credit if you don't mind.

 

[Jasonp]

I went for a darker look 🙂

Heres my try

 

[Kino]

My outcome,

 

[inpaqt]

That looks great Kino. -D-

 

[Aston]

Nice tut, I am trying it now.

 

[Mr. Bond]

Kino, what font is that?