Glass Text

This effect gives text with a glassy or glazed ceramic look. I likethis technique because many of the steps along the way look great in theirown right.

Open a new file, 400 pixels wide by 150 high, 16 million colors,with a white background. Select as your foreground color a light blue,such as RGB 111, 225, 225. Add your text. Here I've used a font calledUnicorn, 55 point. I like to use a font with rounded edges for this effect.

Go to the Selections menu, Modify: Feather. Use a setting of 4.You should see the selected area move out from the edges of your text.

Now give your text a Hotwax coating. This is the first step in givingyour work a three dimensional look.

Deselect your text by pressing [Ctrl] D. Then select the insidecolor of the letters by clicking on them with the Magic Wand. Use a toleranceof 35, and remember to hold down the Shift key as you click on each newarea. Go to Special Effects:Cutout. Set the opacity to 100, the Blurto 4, the shadow color to RGB 202,244,255, and the horizontal and verticaloffsets to -6.

Set the foreground color to RGB 202,244,255. Now we apply a secondhotwax coating. This gives a very nice shine, but is a bit dark

Next we lighten the highlights up a bit. Go to Colors, Adjust: Hue,Saturation, Lightness. Set the Saturation to 100%, and the Luminescenceto 40 .

This looks pretty good, but I think it needs to have much brightercolors. Using the Area Select tool, draw a rectangle around your text,and go to the Color Menu, Adjust: RGB. Set the Red and the Blue to 100%,and the Green to 0.

The final step is to sharpen up the graphic. Go to the Image Menu,Sharpen: Sharpen. Now select the white area around the text with your MagicWand (the tolerance should still be about 35). Don't forget to hold downthe shift key and click on any areas inside the letters. Finally, use yourFlood Fill Tool to color the background some neutral color (I used green)and save as a transparent GIF.

Many variations are possible with this technique, by changing thecolors, the RGB settings, etc. For example, the text below was createdby substituting RGB 255, 87, 87 for the darker blue, and RGB 255, 164,164 for the lighter shade.

Email me at State_of_Entropy@hotmail.com

html web page menu button examples.

XML sitemap is generated with XML sitemap generator
Web tool by Emergency Soft