This technique gives 3D text that has highlights and shadows thatmake it seem very realistic. Start by opening a new file,about450x200 pixels, 16 million colors with a white background. Add some text.Light or medium colors work best. A wider font works nicely, but mediumwidth fonts should work as well. The font used here is Arial Black, 80pt.Deselect your text when you are done. (Selections:None)
Go to Image, Blur: Motion Blur. Set the angle at 45 degrees, andthe Intensity at 20 pixels. This gives just a hint of 3D to the image,but we need to bring that out quite a bit for a good effect.
Using your Area Selection Tool, draw a rectangle around your text.Now set your Background color to white and then copy the text (Edit:Copy). Hit the delete key to clear the space and then paste the text backas a Transparent Selection (Edit, Paste: As Transparent Selection). Thisstep is necessry to get just the blurred text selected. You shouldsee the Marquis around the edges of your text now.
Now we enhance that 3D effect by applying a Hotwax coating(Image, Other:Hotwax.) I find the product of this step very interesting- the text kind of looks like transparent plastic.
Next we smooth it out a bit and get some highlights. This is doneby applying a Motion Blur again (Image, Blur: Motion Blur), keeping thesame setting that were used the first time.
The graphic now has a lot of jagged, blocky edges. We needto clean these up a bit. Go to Selections, Modify: Expand. Expandyour selection by one or two pixel. Now Soften the image (Image, Blur:Soften). The edges should become much smoother and blend into the whitebackground.
Now we add the text again. There are actually two different waysto position the text, at the lower left, or at the upper right. Both willgive a nice 3 D image. Just be sure to position the text at the very edgeof the graphic, covering any jagged edge pixels. Deselect your text.
This actually looks pretty good, but I like to add a color gradientto the letter faces.Set your background color to a darker versionof the color you used for your text. Select your Flood Fill tool and setthe Fill Style to Linear Gradient. In the Options Menu, set the directionto about 135 degrees. Select each individual letter face with the MagicWand, and fill with the gradient. To smooth the gradient you might alsowant to add some Uniform Noise before going on to the next letter (Image,Noise: Add. Check Uniform and set the % Noise to about 6). This may seemtedious, but I think the results can be worth it.
The width of the letters is a function of the intensity of your MotionBlur. If you want thinner letters, just lower the intensity to 5 or 10.The image below was created using a setting of 10.
