572 Creating embroidered type in Photoshop

- Hey gang, this is Deke McClelland, welcome to Deke's Techniques. The holidays, which of course are upon us, are traditionally a time for crafts, which is why this week I'm going to show you how to take some plain old text and turn it into a full blown embroidery effect inside Photoshop. Here, let me show exactly how it works. Alright, here's that final effect, so you can see it on screen. We're going to be starting off inside this denim illustration, which comes to us from the Dreamstime image library.

About which you can learn more and get deals at dreamstime.come/deke.php. I'll go ahead and turn off that URL layer and I'll turn on this top layer right here, which was original set in the font Helvetica Rounded. Now in the event you don't have that font loaded on your system I've gone ahead and converted the characters to a vector-based shape layer. But it is worth noting that the effect I'm about to show you works best on rounded characters of type. As you'll see, we'll need reinforcements at any of the corners.

Alright, I'll go ahead and click on that layer to select it, and then I'll drop down to the FX icon at the bottom of the screen and choose Color Overlay, which is as good of a place to start as any. Now I want my text to be a kind of yellowish orange, so that we have a complementary color to the blue denim, but you can go with any color you like. And to do so just go ahead and set the Blend Mode to Normal, that's going to work just fine, and then click on the color swatch. In my case I'm going to dial in a hue value of 35 degrees, I'll set the saturation at 80, and then I'll leave my brightness value set to 50%, and I'll click OK.

And finally, I'll take the Opacity value up to 88% in order to produce this base shade of brown. Now you want to click on the Bevel & Emboss effect up here at the top of the list to both select it and turn it on. Make sure the Style is set to Inner Bevel as by default. We want the Technique to be Smooth. I'll take the Depth value to 100%. A Direction of Up is just fine. And then I'll change my Size value to 70 pixels, and I'll leave the Soften value set to 0 pixels.

Now notice that my Angle value is set to 120 degrees and the Altitude is 40 degrees and that I have Use Global Light turned on. Alright, now we want the Highlight color to be set to white, as it is by default, and I'm going to change the Highlight Mode to Vivid Light, which is going to give us these hot highlights, as you're seeing here. They're a little too hot, so I'll take the Opacity value down to 70%. And then notice my Shadow color is black, the Mode is set to Multiply, and I'm looking for an Opacity value this time around of 100%.

Alright, now we want to add a Texture, so just go ahead and click on the Texture item in the list, and then click on the Pattern swatch and select this first default swatch. Which if you're seeing a little tool tip is going to read right diagonal line one. Go ahead and select that. And then if you're working along with me set the Scale value to 200%. For the best result you want some multiple of 100%, by the way. And then I will set the Depth value to plus 50, like so.

Alright, now let's bolster things a little bit with an Inner Shadow effect. So go ahead and click on Inner Shadow. Make sure the Blend Mode is set to Multiply, we're looking for a color of black, an Opacity value of 80%. You want to turn off Use Global Light this time around. And set the Angle value to negative 140 degrees. We're also looking for a Distance value of 15 pixels, a Choke of 0% is fine, and we want to take the Size value up to 70 to create this shading along the bottom left edge. Alright, now let's add an obligatory Drop Shadow by clicking on it of course.

I want the color to be black, I want the Opacity value to be 50%, and I'll once again turn off the Use Global Light checkbox, and set the Angle this time to 40 degrees, and then we're looking for a Distance value of 10 pixels, a Spread of 0%, and a Size of 20 pixels. And then finally we want to add a little bit of darkness all around the inside edge. And we can do that using Inner Glow. So go ahead and click on Inner Glow. In my case the color is green for some reason. I'll go ahead and click on the color swatch and set it to black instead by dragging this circle to the bottom left corner of the color field, and then I'll click OK.

I want the Blend Mode to be Multiply, that's going to work out. And I'll set the Opacity value to 77%, and then Tab my way down to the Size value and set it to 10 pixels. And then finally, we'll go ahead and click OK in order to accept each and every one of those five layer effects. Alright, that finishes off the interior of the letters, now we need to add this stitching that's running around the outside edges. And we're going to do that by stroking a path outline with a custom brush.

And so to make that happen if you're working with a live text layer you'll need to convert it to a vector-based shape layer by going up to the Type menu and choosing Convert to Shape. In my case it's dimmed, because I've already done that in advance. Then you want to go to the Windows menu and choose the Paths command to bring up the Paths panel and create a copy of this vector-based shape outline by dragging it and dropping it on the little page icon at the bottom of the panel. And now I'll go ahead and rename this new path letters, like so.

And then just to make things a little less confusing, switch back to the Layers panel and click on some other layer, such as denim down here at the bottom of the stack. And now I'll switch back to the Paths panel. And the reason that this is less confusing is because now we're just seeing the path that we just created, as apposed to both the path and the vector-based layer mask. Alright, now we need to expand this path outline a little bit and the way you have to do that is by expanding a selection outline. And so first convert this path to a selection by pressing the ctrl key or the cmd key on the Mac and clicking on its thumbnail, like so.

Notice now we do have a selection outline. Now go up to the Select menu, choose Modify, and choose the Expand command. And I found that an expansion value of 15 pixels worked great for this particular effect. At which point I'll click OK in order to accept that change. And now we need to convert the selection back to a path outline by dropping down to this little icon right there. Notice when you hover over it it says Make work path from selection, and then click. Now we need to go ahead and save out this Work Path and you do that by double-clicking anywhere on an empty portion of this path.

And then I'll go ahead and name this guy expand 15px, so I remember what I did in the future, and now I'll click OK. Alright, now we're going to stroke this path outline with a brush. And to make that happen return to the Layers panel, go ahead and click on that layer below the layer to which we applied all those layer effects, and then create a new layer on top of it by pressing ctrl + shift + n or cmd + shift + n on the Mac, which brings up the New Layer dialog box. And then I'll just go ahead and name this guy let's say stitching, and then I'll click OK.

Alright, now you want your foreground color to be white and so assuming that it's currently black just go ahead and press the x key to switch the foreground and background color. And then you want to select the Brush Tool. Now we've got quite a few settings to change here, which means that you'll need to go to the Window menu and choose the Brush command to bring up that complex Brush dialog box. Now go ahead and click on Brush Tip Shape, if it's not already selected, and we want to take the Size value up to 30 pixels, like so, and then drop down to these Angle and Roundness values and grab this little arrowhead here and move it to the top, so that our Angle is 90 degrees.

Of course, you can just dial in that Angle if you want as well. And then you can drag one of these side handles here in order to make the Brush very narrow. And we're looking for a Roundness value of 12%. Then crank the Hardness value up to 80%, that way we have a little bit of natural softness in our stitching. And finally you want to crank the Spacing value way up to 130% is what I'm looking for. And notice that creates some gaps between each dollop of paint.

Now click on Shape Dynamics here in the left hand list and drop down to this Angle Control right here and change it to Direction, so that those little dollops of paint change with the direction of the path outline. And then take the Angle Jitter value up ever so slightly to 3%, so we have a little bit of natural variation. After which point you can go ahead and close the Brush panel. Now you want to return to the Paths panel, make sure that that path outline is still selected, and then drop down to this little stroke icon right here, notice it reads Stroke a path with Brush, and instead of clicking on it, just to make sure everything's the way it needs to be, go ahead and press the alt key or the opt key on the Mac and click.

And you want to make sure that Tool is set to Brush, like so, and that the Simulate Pressure checkbox is turned off. After which point go ahead and click OK in order to create those seams. And notice, if we go ahead and zoom in here that we have some nice, natural stitching. Alright, now go ahead and click off the paths outline here inside the Paths panel to hide it. And notice at the top of the T that we have a little bit of gapping around the corners. To fill that in with the Brush Tool still selected just go ahead and click right about here and then shift + click at this point in order to draw a straight line of thread in between.

Then click right there and Shift + click over here underneath the crossbar of the T, that gives me a little bit of a gap still, so I'll click again, just to create another thread. And now you need to do the same thing for the other T, so go ahead and click here, and then Shift + click above the crossbar, and now click and Shift + click below the crossbar, and then finally, go ahead and scroll your way over to the top of the H. Notice that this corner has no thread in it, and then just drag down, like so.

Alright, now we need to give our stitching the appearance of depth. So go ahead and switch back to the Layers panel, and with that stitching layer selected press the Alt key or the Option key on the Mac and drag the Drop Shadow from the layer above it and then drop it onto the stitching layer. And notice, because you have the Alt or Option key down you're going to see a double arrowhead cursor, which tells you that you're going to duplicate that Drop Shadow. Now double-click on it in order to bring up the Layer Style dialog box. And we want to leave most of these settings alone, but we want to change the Distance value to 20, and then take the Spread value up to 5%, which is going to give us a little bit of an extra edge, and take the Size value down to 10 pixels.

Alright, now that works out pretty well, but I want a little bit of extra Drop Shadow on the other side of the thread. And you can make that happen in Photoshop CC by clicking on this little plus sign next to the Drop Shadow. So if you have the most recent version of Photoshop you'll be able to add an additional Drop Shadow. If you're using Photoshop CS6 or earlier don't worry about it. Now in my case I already have an extra Drop Shadow lined up, so I'll just go ahead and click on it in order to turn it on. And this time I want to adjust my settings a little bit.

I'm going to crank the Opacity value up to 100%. I still want Use Global Light to be turned off, but I'm going to change the Angle to 120 degrees. And then I will change the Distance value to 14 pixels, like so. I will set the Spread to 0%, and then I'll take the Size value down to 2 pixels, and that gives me a little bit of darkness over here on the bottom right edge. Alright, now finally go ahead and click OK in order to accept that change. And now let's grab the Bevel & Emboss effect from the top layer and duplicate it as well by pressing the Alt key or the Option key on the Mac and dragging it and dropping it onto the stitching layer, like so.

Again, you should see that double arrowhead cursor. Now that's obviously a little bit of a mess, because I added that diagonal line texture as well. And so to make things better go ahead and double-click on Bevel & Emboss, turn off the Texture item, which is going to get rid of those diagonal lines. And then drop down to the Size value there and reduce it to 16 pixels. And then finally, we want to change the Highlight Mode from Vivid Light to Screen. And then I'll crank the Opacity value up to 100%.

And then finally I'll leave the Shadow Mode set to Multiply, but I'll take the Opacity value down to 70%. And then I'll go ahead and click OK in order to accept this effect, like so. Alright, now just to make sure you don't mess up your layer go ahead and switch back to the Rectangular Marquee Tool. And then finally, I'll press shift + f in order to fill the screen with the image and I'll press ctrl + 0 or cmd + 0 on the Mac to fit it to the screen. And that is how you create an embroidered text effect entirely from scratch using nothing more than a rounded font, a handful of layer effects, and a custom brush here inside Photoshop.

Now if you're a member of lynda.com I have a follow-up movie in which I show you how to stitch the script font. Very interesting stuff. And I should mention, by the way, that I was inspired where this particular effect is concerned by an entity, I don't think it's a single person, I think it's multiples, named PSDDude. Now I made a fair amount of changes, of course, but the reason I mention this is because PSDDude sells a bunch of embroidery actions that you might find interesting. So again, it's PSDDude, the D is repeated, but of course it's all mushed together.

If you're waiting for next week I'm going to show you how to light up some synthetic trees inside Photoshop. I came up with this one all by myself. Deke's Techniques, each and every week, keep watching.