486 Creating high-resolution ice type in Photoshop

- Hey gang, this is Deke McClelland. Welcome to Deke's Techniques. Now today, marks the fifth anniversary of this thing. I'm about to embark on my sixth uninterrupted year, which fills me with, of course, sinful pride. Which is why I thought we would revisit the very first technique of them all in which I showed you how to create ice type. Now, the problem with episode one is that it shows you how to do so, at a low resolution, this is just 72 pixels per inch, which is why today I'm going to show you a similar technique, that works at a high resolution, in this case 300 pixels per inch so that we get nice, sharp results, every time.

Here, let me show you exactly how it works. All right, just so you fully appreciate the seismic enhancement to this technique. Here is the original effect from 2011, shown at the 25% zoom ratio, and here is the new effect at that same size and so all told we have more than 20 times this many pixels. All right, so the first thing you want to do is create some type and fill it with white and I also added a shape layer just for the sake of ornamentation. Now, if we were to take these two layers right here, ice type and snow flakes and turn them into a smart object, then Photoshop would go ahead and trim all the extra space around the letters and the shapes away, and that's going to cause problems with our final effect.

So, we need to mark the size of the canvas relative to the text and ornaments and we're going to do that by duplicating this background layer right here, which is the exact same size as the canvas. So, I'm just going to select that layer and press Ctrl + J or Cmd + J on a Mac. And then I'll shift click on the ice type layers so all three of those layers are selected and then I'll right click inside the image window with the Rectangular Marquee Tool and I'll choose Convert to Smart Object. All right, now you need to get that background out of the smart object, so go ahead and double click on the smart object thumbnail there inside the Layers Panel.

And then select that background layer, which is called Frosty in my case and press the Backspace key or the Delete key on a Mac to get rid of it. This way we have extra space around the text and the shapes, which is going to be necessary for our icicles. All right, now just go ahead and close the smart object and I'll click Yes in order to save the changes on the PC, you would click the Save Button on a Mac. All right, now we're going to create the icicles in the same way we did five years ago, using the wind filter, which has not changed one iota over this period of time.

It still creates its wind, which is our icicles, from either the left to the right, or the right to the left, it does not go up and down. So what we need to do at this point is rotate the entire image by going up to the Image Menu, choosing Image Rotation and then choosing 90 Degree Clockwise, and that will make our text run sideways. All right, now you want to go up to the Filter Menu, then choose Stylize and finally choose Wind and we're going to stick with the default settings, meaning that the method is going to be Wind and the direction is going to be From the Right and notice that as a result, we get these itty bitty icicles.

And so the thing is the Wind Filter was designed about 100 years ago, back when nobody had high resolution images and that's why we get these dinky little effects, but it's still going to work for us, so go ahead and click OK in order to apply that filter. And I'll go ahead and zoom in so that we can see the action, up close and personal. So here we are at 100% looking at these tiny little things right here, that are never going to show up. Until we enhance the effect, by returning to the Filter Menu and choosing Wind once again, or you can just press Ctrl + F or Cmd + F on a Mac.

And notice now, even though we're using the exact same settings, we are compounding the effect and making those icicles longer. At which point you want to click OK and now you want to press Ctrl + F or Cmd + F on a Mac again and then click OK. And then finally you want to press Ctrl + F or Cmd + F again, a third time, in order to apply a fourth application of the wind filter as soon as you click OK. And notice now we have four winds as we're seeing here. We don't need this filter mask, by the way, so you can right click on it and choose Delete Filter Mask, in order to give yourself a little more room inside the Layers Panel.

All right, now we need to thicken up these icicles and we're going to do that by reducing the amount of transparency associated with this layer. And the way you pull that off is to return to the Filter Menu, choose Other and then choose Minimum. So at this point if we were to choose Maximum, we would increase the transparency and thereby make the icicles skinnier, whereas if we choose Minimum, we're going to make the transparent areas skinnier, and the opaque areas thicker. And so go ahead and choose that command and by default you are going to see this effect here, you are going to see a radius of just one, so things are going to get a little bit thicker, but what we want for this effect, and least where the resolution of this image is concerned, we want a resolution of five pixels.

And so, you may need to adjust this value depending on how many pixels you have in the image in general. Now, if you have this option right here, if you are using Photoshop CC, then go ahead and change Preserve to Roundness and that's going to go ahead and give you slightly better results, if you don't have this option, don't worry about it. All right, now click OK in order to apply that change. All right now I'm going to zoom out and what I would like to do at this point, is go up to the Image Menu, choose Image Rotation and then choose 90 Degrees Counterclockwise, but if I do that, you can see the effects are rather disastrous, because Photoshop decides to help us out and shift the wind effect so that it is once again going to the left and that is not what we want, so I'll press Ctrl + Z or Cmd + Z on a Mac to undo that change, and what we need to do, is create yet another smart object.

Again, we need a Dummy Layer to establish a canvas size, so go ahead and click on that Frosty Layer and then press Ctrl + J or Cmd + J on a Mac to jump it and then shift click on the Ice Type Layer, right click in the image window with that Rectangular Marquee Tool and choose Convert to Smart Object. All right, now what you want to do is double click on that Smart Object Thumbnail, in order to open up what is now a Parent Smart Object. Now click on the Frosty Layer, and press the Backspace Key or the Delete Key on a Mac to get rid of it, because after all we don't want it to be part of the effect.

Now, go ahead and close the smart object, click the Yes button here on the PC or the Save Button on a Mac. And you may want to tidy up the layer name, which has now been updated to Ice Type 1, I still just want it to be Ice Type. Now, we want to rotate our image, by going to the Image Menu, choosing Image Rotation and choosing 90 Degrees Counterclockwise and this time we get exactly the effect we are looking for. And by exactly, I mean that we're not actually done yet. What we need to do is assign a couple of layer effects.

So go ahead and drop down to the FX Icon, click it and choose Bevel Emboss, which is really Bevel and Emboss and these are the settings I came up with. Style; Inner Bevel, Technique; Smooth, a Depth of 150%, notice that the direction is set to Down, we have a Size of 40 Pixels, Soften set to zero. Both my Angle and my Altitude, are set to 30 Degrees a piece. The Gloss Contour right here which starts off as Linear, I went ahead and changed that to Ring, the first ring not the second one.

So the second icon, in the second row. And I also turned on the Anti-Aliased checkbox, just to make sure that we're getting the smoothest possible effects. Now, you want the Highlight Mode to be set to White, an Opacity of 100%, and the brightest blend mode that there is, which is Linear Dodge Add. For the Shadow, I went ahead and specified a color, by clicking on this color swatch, it has a Hue of 190 degrees which is just 10 degrees bluer than absolute cyan. I set the Saturation Value to 100% and the Brightness to 33%, now click OK.

You want the Shadow Mode to be the darkest one there is, which is Linear Burn and I set the Opacity value to 50%. All right, thing is though, if you take a look at your image window, it doesn't really look like anything and that's because the letters are currently opaque. To make them translucent, click on Blending Options, over here on the left hand list, and tak the Fill Opacity down to just 10% and that will reduce the opacity of the letters, without affecting the Bevel and Emboss effect. All right, now we need to texture the letters and you can do that by clicking on texture, right there and the one we're looking for, is not part of the default list.

What you have to do is click on the little Gear Icon right there and then choose the Patterns Library. Not Patterns 2 do just Patterns. And in response to the alert message, you would presumably click Append, so you don't lose any of your existing patterns and then select this guy right there, Molecular. Now at first, it's going to look like this, so I'll change the values to their default, which is obviously, astonishingly, appallingly ugly. And so, what you want to do is increase the Scale Value and I went ahead and took it up to 500%, still really-super ugly, which is why I then took the Depth Value down to 10%, like so.

All right, we also need a little bit of a Drop Shadow, so go ahead and click on Drop Shadow. Make sure the blend mode is set to multiply, crank the Opacity value up to 100%. Click on the Color Swatch and change it to that same shade of cyan, 190 Degrees, 100%, 33%, click OK. We want an Angle of 30 degrees, a Distance of 20 Pixels, a Spread of zero, and a size of 40 Pixels. At which point, you can go ahead and click OK, in order to accept those effects. And there you have it, that is how you create Ice Type the modern way, at a very high resolution, here inside Photoshop.

Now, if you are a member of Lynda.com then I have a follow-up movie, in which I show you how to take our Ice Type and edit it, which is just a little bit tricky, because we're working inside of a Nested Smart Object. If you are waiting for next week, well it's a little bit of a secret, but here's the sneak, I'm going to show you how to take this 3D Model right here, which requires no 3D experience on your part and make it match one scene, after another, inside Photoshop. If you are a Designer, you are going to love this.

Deke's Techniques, each and every week. Keep watching.