Awesome Grunge Text Effect

Posted: June 30th, 2008 in Text Effects

This tutorial will show you how to create an awesome grungy text effect. The effect can be used to liven up your website layouts, but can also provide a good way to display logos and other graphical elements alone.

Final Image:

Here is the final image that we’ll be creating:

Step 1:

Open up your background image. For this particular example I’ve chosen this lovely example of a mouldy wall.

Step 2:

Go to image > adjustments > desaturate to grayscale your image. Then go to adjustments > brightness/contrast and reduce the brightness to -100, and contrast to -90.

Step 3:

Now I want to add some text to the center of my document. An easy way to do this is to drag from one edge of your document to the other using the horizontal type tool. Then simple align any text that you’re going to type to center. I’ve chosen a nice larger, bold Tahoma font, mostly because it matches my logo.

Step 4:

Next go to layer blending modes, and select an inner shadow, inner glow, and gradient overlay with the settings shown below. The outcome will look something like this:

Step 5:

Open up your original mould image again and paste it onto a new layer above your text layer. Make sure that you resize it to be roughly the same width as your text.

Step 6:

Now hide this new mould image layer to reveal the text underneath. Select your text layer. Use the magic wand selection tool to select around the text, and also the areas within the text (the gaps within the P, D and A). With your selection in place go back to your new mould image layer. Go to layer > add layer mask > hide selection. This will hide the area around your text, meaning that your mould image now is in the shape of your text.

Step 7:

Change your mould imagery layer blending mode to ‘hard light’ and reduce it’s opacity to 50%.

Step 8:

I now want my finished text complete with effects/textures to be on one easy to edit layer. I can’t merge layers down to achieve this as it will mess up some of my layer styles. Instead I simply hide my background layer and go to layer > merge visible.

Step 9:

Now duplicate your merged text layer. Move your duplicate layer beneath the original and use edit > transform resize to resize your duplicated text layer to about half the size of the original. Position this below the ‘PSD’ part of your original larger text. Duplicate the smaller text layer and position this about the ‘FAN’ part of the larger original. Resize a tiny bit where necessary to get it to fit nicely above the letters.

Step 10:

Repeat this resizing technique, positioning the smaller text below the PSD of the bottom text, and above the FAN of the top text.

Step 11:

Keep repeating this until you can’t go any smaller. You will need to magnify in to work with the ultra small text after repeating this a few times. Finally go to layer > merge down and merge all of these text layers into one single layer.

Step 12:

Now create a new layer above your text layer and make a large custom shape that covers most of your text. It’s important that the custom shape allows much of the text through, despite almost being the same size. I’ve made the shape pink in the example below just so that you can see it more clearly.

Step 13:

Rasterize your custom shape layer and select around the shape using the magic wand tool. Then hide the custom shape layer and go back to your merged text layer, selection still in place.

Step 14:

Then go to image > adjustments > hue/saturation. Make the hue -10, saturation +20 and lightness -10. The outcome should look like the example below:

Step 15:

Duplicate your text layer. Go back to the original layer underneath the duplicate and go to image > adjustments > brightness/contrast. Reduce brightness to -100 and up the contrast to +100. This will make the text completely black. Then using the arrow keys on your keyboard to move the layer down 2px and right 2px. Duplicate this layer and do the same. Keep repeating this until you have a kind of 3d shadow effect coming from the top text layer, which is still in tact. Finally merge all of these black text layers into one.

Step 16:

Now go to the layer blending options for this ‘black text’ layer and apply a white stroke, size=1, opacity=6%. You should get something like the outcome below:

Step 17:

Now paste onto a new layer an image of some sticky tape. Select the white background using the magic wand tool and delete it. Resize and move the tape to an appropriate place and reduce the layer’s opacity to 25%.

Step 18:

I wanted to add a little something to the background of my image, so I grabbed an awesome image of a paint splatter. Credit goes to Didi90, and the original image can be found here: http://www.sxc.hu/photo/906249. I pasted this paint splatter onto a new layer below my text layers, but above my original mould background.

And we’re done!

To blend the splatter image nicely I simply set the layer’s blending mode to ‘multiply’. I hope that you found this tutorial useful, and as always would love to see people recreate my work! Please click the image below if you would like to download the full sized version free!

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51 Comments so Far:

Comment by Raj on July 1, 2008 at 3:27 am

nice tutorial Tom Thanx 4 sharing!
Comment by Tom on July 1, 2008 at 12:09 pm

Thanks Raj I’m glad that you enjoyed it.
Comment by netridge on July 2, 2008 at 3:58 pm

nicely done work, thank for sharing it came out pretty good.
Comment by Tom on July 2, 2008 at 4:19 pm

Thanks Netridge! I’m glad that you found it useful.
Comment by vimmy negi on July 3, 2008 at 5:08 am

nice man good tutorial
Comment by Teresa on July 3, 2008 at 7:39 am

Thanks!!!!Nice work!! That’s what I am looking for
Comment by Tom on July 3, 2008 at 1:32 pm

Thanks Vimmy Negi and Teresa! It’s great to know that people are finding these techniques useful!
Pingback by PSDFAN a Success! - psdfan.com - on July 18, 2008 at 2:23 am

[...] Awesome Grunge Text Effect [...]
Comment by MikeL_zO! on July 22, 2008 at 3:42 pm

wow! i really like the tut.. it’s really cool man! \m/
but i wanna ask something Tom.. hope you won’t mind.
how to make that signature below an image? or the signature of the person who does the tricks in the picture? any site you can suggest? thanks man! keep on posting cool tutorials!
Comment by Tom on July 23, 2008 at 7:01 am

Thanks MikeL_zO. I’m glad you enjoyed the tut. I definitely don’t mind you asking stuff Would you mind posting an example of what you mean though, perhaps you could comment in my suggest a tutorial post, and I’d be happy to write a tutorial on the subject for you.
Comment by Anthony on July 30, 2008 at 8:05 am

hey, awesome tutorial.
but for some reason, it doesn’t work for me.
i am using Adobe Photoshop CS2 and when i get to the part of the tutorial where i select the image, select the outside and create and hide the layer mask, the pattern does not show through the text. I hope someone can help me out.
Comment by lUKE on August 2, 2008 at 7:20 pm

imPoSSIBLE tO Do!!
Comment by Ivan on August 4, 2008 at 6:18 am

im stuck… after you hide the selection after you selected psdfan, i still have that non-dark background image behind my words and on top of the dark background
Comment by Tom on August 4, 2008 at 8:16 am

Hi Anthony. The pattern shouldn’t need to show through, as it’s on a layer above your text. What you’re really doing is having the mould pattern above your text layer, and then simply deleting the area around the shape of your text, to make the mould pattern fit that shape. If the mask still isn’t working for you then hide your mould layer, select around your text, make your mould layer visible again, select that layer, then hit delete to delete the selection around your text shape.

Ivan: Sorry I’m not sure exactly what you mean by this. If you don’t mind being a little more specific and perhaps referring to a certain step then I’d be happy to try and help.
Comment by PDizzle on September 2, 2008 at 8:02 pm

Dude that is sweet.
You are freaking awesome : )

If only my imagination was as good as yours, hahah.
I would never think to try something like that.
Comment by Tom on September 3, 2008 at 12:53 am

Haha thanks mate, glad you enjoyed it
Comment by Wolfie[NoCT] on September 12, 2008 at 1:09 am

Hey, could you send me the picture of the pink flower thing?
Comment by Tom on September 12, 2008 at 1:26 am

Hey Wolfie. The shape should be in your Photoshop custom shapes.
Comment by Wolfie[NoCT] on September 12, 2008 at 1:35 am

Also, I’m stuck on what “Rasterize” means, could you explain that step in detail?

(I’m using CS2)
Comment by Tom on September 12, 2008 at 1:54 am

Rasterize means to convert an image or object from vector to raster format. If you want to learn more about both vector and raster then Google should bring up a ton of information for you.
Comment by Wolfie[NoCT] on September 12, 2008 at 1:56 am

I tried Google but nothing really.
I figured it out a different way though…
Change it to “Hue” then do the Hue/Saturation to -10, 20, -10.
Comment by Wolfie[NoCT] on September 12, 2008 at 2:04 am

Here’s my finished version, nothing special, just followed the tut.

http://img529.imageshack.us/img529/9725/grungeevh5.jpg
Comment by Tom on September 12, 2008 at 2:11 am

I’m glad that you figured it out. I really like your end result! It has a gamer feel to it or something. Nice work!
Comment by Wolfie[NoCT] on September 12, 2008 at 2:28 am

Wow, thanks!
That’s what I was shooting towards.
I’ll be sure to go over some of your other tutorials tomorrow and try them out!
Comment by Wolfie[NoCT] on September 12, 2008 at 2:30 am

Forgot to say,
I’m going to try and add an animation into it somewhere, I’ll post the *.gif when I finish it.
Comment by Tom on September 12, 2008 at 2:33 am

No problem I can’t wait to see the finished animation.

If you’re interested I’m launching a Flickr group for PSDFAN really soon, it’s just been held up slightly by a hectic schedule. I’d love for you to share your works.
Comment by Wolfie[NoCT] on September 12, 2008 at 2:39 am

Just added a slight animation, I didn’t want to distract the user away from the symbol/logo of my name too too much.
I don’t think I’ve ever used Flickr, but I’d be glad to check it out and share my works with people. I have a couple of pictures from my last years Communication Technology class I worked on, and I have some from this years class too.
Anyways, here’s the gif:

http://img513.imageshack.us/img513/499/ggrungevk1.gif

Tell me what you think! =]
Comment by Tom on September 12, 2008 at 5:25 pm

Wow! Very impressive Wolfie :). You should definitely check out Flickr and join the PSDFAN community there once it’s all live. Nice work!
Comment by Wolfie[NoCT] on September 12, 2008 at 11:48 pm

I found this tut’s final product to be a very nice and fun image to make. Can you recommend your “most fun” tuts from the others on this site to me, and I’ll do those ones first.
Or recommend me some you want to see other people’s work from the most and I’ll do them.

Also, you want the links to some other works I’ve completed on my own, they are nowhere near as good as your products, but I liked them nonetheless.
Comment by Tom on September 14, 2008 at 10:40 pm

Hi Wolfie. I’m glad that you enjoyed making your piece. I’m not really sure which of my tutorials are considered the most fun, but if you browse the archives the post thumbnail images should let you know what looks best.

I would love to see more of your work, and if you want to provide any new designs to offer as freebies here that would be awesome too! If you want to send me some examples of your work you can contact me at: http://www.pushstandards.com. Thanks!
Comment by Wolfie[NoCT] on September 14, 2008 at 11:11 pm

I’m going to try your grungy island tutorial next I think. I definitely did enjoy making this piece, maybe I could request of you to make more text based tutorials?

I’ll be sure to send you a couple links to my pieces through Push Standards.
Comment by Azzy on September 27, 2008 at 11:23 am

thanks again….cant help but wonder what i’dve done if i didnt find this
Comment by MedicatedArts on September 28, 2008 at 4:22 am

wow! impressive! but i like it more on white background! it seems with more power and personality! but awesome! … ah! and a little tip! if you click the little image preview on the layers palette holding down the command key (on mac … i dont know if crtl do it to on pc) photoshop will select al the visible things on that layer! try it its very cool!!! see ya soon! and again awesome tutorial!
Comment by Nitos on September 30, 2008 at 5:44 pm

Nice effect! thanks 4 sharing…!
Comment by andy on October 10, 2008 at 4:21 pm

Hi Tom, I’m a bit of an old dog always learning new tricks. I’d have done all this using an airbrush once! Thanx for the clear and very helpful instructions and for sharing your ideas to inspire others.
Comment by Illusion Design on October 10, 2008 at 5:31 pm

Here is my result lol http://i481.photobucket.com/albums/rr172/Alp1ne/Illusionsplash.jpg Not the same but still thx for the tut
Comment by Muhammad Salahudin on October 13, 2008 at 4:16 am

PSD file please… =)
Comment by DigiArtBali on October 25, 2008 at 5:15 pm

wow.. cool… great tutorial… perfect. thanks for share.
Comment by Neri-Rwks on November 16, 2008 at 1:54 am

Awesome Tutorial i really enjoy it..
and i kinda changed somethings a little bit.
Comment by Add on November 20, 2008 at 8:14 pm

Thanks, I used this tutorial for the cover of a school project(with my minor own touch to it), turned out really cool.
Comment by Matt on December 15, 2008 at 10:37 am

hey heres mine http://img241.imageshack.us/my.php?image=walletlh9.jpg

i changed it a little i am an aspiring designer and are a big fan of this site and your work
Pingback by Looking Back at 2008 (Plus News and Flickr Roundup) - psdfan.com - on December 31, 2008 at 1:04 pm

[...] Time for a Grungy Text Tutorial - The most popular tutorial of the 2 published at the end of June, receiving over 40 comments to date. It seems that people appreciate a good text tutorial. [...]
Comment by Aky on January 20, 2009 at 8:15 pm

Hey, thanks for the excellent tutorial!
Comment by Deepak on January 30, 2009 at 8:41 am

Thanx a lot………….
Comment by slappy99 on February 12, 2009 at 6:56 pm

Great tutorial. My only problem is I can’t get the 3d shadow effect to look proper.
Comment by Mark on February 17, 2009 at 10:09 pm

Awesome tut. Thanks Tom. Why is it I can never get my fonts to render perfectly smooth - they always seem slightly more pixelated. Your font is render perfect - my edges looked a bit jaded. I am using a Windows machine.
Comment by Tom on February 18, 2009 at 8:53 pm

Mark: Try turning on your anti-aliasing, this should do the trick.
Comment by weberica on February 25, 2009 at 1:30 pm

great idea :))
Comment by Stephen on March 15, 2009 at 7:03 pm

Awsome!!!
Thank you, you are inspiration to us
who are on our PSbeginnings.
I.m thinking on making PS related blog on my
mather language,
would you mind if I feature some of your tuts
translated in my language.
Of course I would post from where is original tut and link it to original post.

you are doing a great stuff.
dont stop.
Comment by izah on June 19, 2009 at 4:23 pm

I really do learn a lot in this tut. thanks for the good share. keep it up.
Comment by Foxumon on June 26, 2009 at 12:03 am

Thanks, nice and easy type treatment with great results