Image preview: Create Smokey Typography in 12 Steps

Create Smokey Typography in 12 Steps

February 26th 2009
in
by Tom

Learn how to create cool smokey typography in 12 simple steps.

Read More... 47 comments

Final Image

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

smoke12b Create Smokey Typography in 12 Steps

User Suggestion

This tutorial is actually a suggestion of some of our visitors. I always welcome user suggestions and would love to get your ideas for future tutorials.

Images/Files Used

Here is a list of images and files used in this tutorial:

http://www.sxc.hu/photo/1114780

http://www.sxc.hu/photo/1111544

http://www.sxc.hu/photo/1080080

http://www.sxc.hu/photo/1063678

http://www.sxc.hu/photo/345436

Step 1

Open up a new document (600X250px) and create a new layer called ‘black background’. Fill your entire canvas with black.

smoke1 Create Smokey Typography in 12 Steps

Step 2

Now add some white text to the center of your canvas. I used the font ‘Gill Sans’ set to bold.

smoke2 Create Smokey Typography in 12 Steps

Step 3

Now duplicate your text layer. Select your original and rasterize it (layer>rasterize>layer). Then apply a motion blur to this layer by going to filter>blur>motion blur. Set your angle to 90 and your blur strength to 20. Finally reduce your layer’s opacity to 60%.

smoke3a Create Smokey Typography in 12 Steps

smoke3b Create Smokey Typography in 12 Steps

Step 4

Now paste in an image of some smoke. Make sure that you find an image of smoke on a black background, and if there is any color to your smoke go to image>adjustments>desaturate. Then change your layer’s blend mode to ‘exclusion’.

smoke4 Create Smokey Typography in 12 Steps

Step 5

Now select a large, soft eraser brush at a low opacity (around 10%) and erase the edges of your smoke image.

smoke5 Create Smokey Typography in 12 Steps

Step 6

Now repeat the same technique with another smoke image.

smoke6 Create Smokey Typography in 12 Steps

Step 7

Add some more smoke, being sure to erase parts of each image until things are looking good.

smoke7 Create Smokey Typography in 12 Steps

Step 8

Now paste in another smoke image, and set your layer blend mode to ‘multiply’. Then go to image>adjustments>levels and set your input levels to 0, 1.00, 100.

smoke8 Create Smokey Typography in 12 Steps

Step 9

You’ll notice that this layer now hides some of your previous smoke layers. To fix this grab a soft eraser brush and erase around your letters, exposing the rest of your smoke.

smoke9 Create Smokey Typography in 12 Steps

Step 10

Now if you remember we created 2 text layers earlier and rasterized the first one. Now it’s time to rasterize the second one. Once you have done this grab your smudge tool, and set your brush size to 40px and your strength to 60%. You want to start smudging the tops of the letters of your top text layer. To achieve a nice smokey effect, don’t simply smudge upwards, but make small circular smudging motions.

Also reduce this text layers opacity to 75%.

smoke10 Create Smokey Typography in 12 Steps

Step 11

Select your paintbrush tool and apply the settings shown below in your brush palette.

smoke11a Create Smokey Typography in 12 Steps

smoke11b Create Smokey Typography in 12 Steps

smoke11c Create Smokey Typography in 12 Steps

Step 12

Now paint over your text on a new top layer. To make your scattered brush marks more obvious duplicate your layer and merge it down with the original. Then apply an outer glow blending option to your layer (settings below).

smoke12a Create Smokey Typography in 12 Steps

smoke12b Create Smokey Typography in 12 Steps

And We’re Done!

I really hope that you enjoyed this tutorial, and as always I’d appreciate your comments.

smoke12b Create Smokey Typography in 12 Steps

Related Posts:

About the Author: Tom is the founder of PSDFAN. He loves writing tutorials, learning more about design and interacting with the community. On a more interesting note he can also play guitar hero drunk with his teeth.

47 Awesome Comments: Leave Your Comment

  1. User Gravatarloswl 26th February 2009

    Very cool results, I love that it in Black and White too :o )

  2. User GravatarTom 27th February 2009

    Thanks! I’m glad you liked the result.

  3. Shaw 27th February 2009

    Thanks for using my suggestion Tom. Been waiting a while for you to come up with a tutorial for smoke text effect. It looked pretty hard, yet you made it look pretty easy and you have pulled it of terrifically! Well done :D
    I had a quick play in photoshop just to see if i could get a near result. Also i used the same smoke picture throughout but just stretched it, rotated it and used the liquify tool.
    http://i513.photobucket.com/albums/t340/shawmiester/smoke-test.jpg

  4. User GravatarTom 27th February 2009

    No worries Shaw, it was a great suggestion and a fun tutorial to write. Nice outcome by the way!

  5. User GravatarDainis Graveris 27th February 2009

    That’s great idea to put something like this together -how always – very good looking outcome! Nice, Tom!

  6. User GravatarTom 27th February 2009

    Thanks Dainis :)

  7. User GravatarRaSh 27th February 2009

    Ah awesome!
    I took a few smoke pics a while back.. Guess this will be a nice thing to add on when I post them :)

  8. User GravatarTom 27th February 2009

    Awesome, I’d be happy to post your smoke images here if you’d like?

  9. User Gravatarddz 27th February 2009

    nice result, but how about a tut teaching how to take pics of smoke or how to create realistic smoke like that??

  10. User GravatarTom 27th February 2009

    Great idea! I’ll try and get a tut done on that next week.

  11. User Gravatarsticktacular 28th February 2009

    TO MAKE THIS AWESOME EFFECT BETTER, CHANGE THE TEXT TO BLACK AND PUT IT AS THE TOP LAYER

  12. Matt 1st March 2009

    Wow great tutorial, I loved it, put my own style into it with some color ;)

    http://i42.tinypic.com/2jb85mw.jpg

  13. User GravatarTom 1st March 2009

    Wow! That’s a truly incredible outcome Matt. Nice work!

  14. Matt 1st March 2009

    =) couldn’t have done it without the tut

  15. Teknotik 2nd March 2009

    nice out come ;) A++ tutorial it was easy to read.

    how come I can not join this site ?

  16. User GravatarTom 2nd March 2009

    Thanks for the kind words Teknotik. I’m afraid the members area hasn’t launched due to some totally unforeseen problems in the file upload. I’m getting it fixed currently though and will announce when it launches.

  17. vasu 3rd March 2009

    its cool effect i love this effect thanks Tom

  18. User GravatarTom 3rd March 2009

    Thanks Vasu!

  19. Nillix 6th March 2009

    step 4 dosnt make sense when i paste the image in it covers my letters can u tell me how i can get the background of the smoke and only leave the smoke ????

  20. User GravatarTom 7th March 2009

    Make sure to set your layer’s blend mode to ‘exclusion’ in your layers palette. If this doesn’t work try setting it to ’screen’ mode.

  21. User GravatarMatthew 11th March 2009

    This is not typography. Yes, it is nice, yes, it is well done. But please stop calling this typography, this is design using type as an element or centre piece. Nice job on it but please consider what you are calling it next time.

  22. User GravatarTom 11th March 2009

    Yeah I see your point. Thanks for the kind words anyway.

  23. User GravatarBrandon L 17th March 2009

    this is such a rip off of PSDVAULT.com’s smoke text effect

  24. User GravatarTom 18th March 2009

    I just looked through their text tutorials and I’m not sure which tutorial you’re referring to? Either way I didn’t rip them off, if it’s similar then it’s purely through coincidence.

  25. User GravatarWDS Design 26th March 2009

    aqui esta mi resultado es un tutial easy pero good.

    http://www.flickr.com/photos/wdsdesing/3386956715/sizes/o/

  26. User GravatarTom 26th March 2009

    I’m afraid I’m not quite sure what you said there (being terrible at languages), but I had to approve your comment as your result is really awesome! Nice work :)

  27. Pedro 27th March 2009

    he said that was his result. Also said it was an easy tutorial but very good :p these spanish guys suck at english xD im still trying to follow your steps and its looking good! awsome result. thanks a lot.

    oh btw what are those brushes you use?

  28. User Gravatarxea 4th April 2009

    Thanks very much for this tutorial, nice ;)

  29. reza 7th April 2009

    nice
    and cool
    very thank’s for your Tutorial

  30. User Gravatarphoto retouching 8th May 2009

    What a really great result. These design tutorials serve to keep a lot of people inspired. Thanks for sharing.

  31. erwin 9th May 2009

    thanks….that’s great tutorial…keep it up…

  32. tech9 15th May 2009

    ^^ nice tutorial but theres something was not good.copying a smoking to an image?? do you can make a tutorial how to make a smoke???thanks email me at tech9_god@yahoo.com

  33. lalo 30th June 2009

    Thank you for the tutorial, only I have a small problem, it(he,she) is that not to do that the smoke sees on the letters and not below.
    Thank you

  34. Arus 15th July 2009

    thanks so much for this tutorial i made a rockin insert for my scanlation group and it came out great after a couple of tries ^^ i used a font that already had splatter so i wouldnt have to worry about that later lol…and i just want to comment that there are some really rude postings in this tutorial and just want to thank you for even wanting to share with us and continuing to reply to each and every comment.

  35. User GravatarTom 15th July 2009

    Thanks Arus, that means a lot :) . Feel free to share your work here.

  36. Ervin 10th August 2009

    where can I find Gill Sans Bold?
    thanks

  37. Terence 13th August 2009

    Dude thanks a bunch this was incredible and very easy to read :D TYVM!!!

    Result: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=82172&id=839858705&saved#/photo.php?pid=2206552&id=839858705

  38. zargraph 18th September 2009

    tank you

  39. User GravatarDania 28th September 2009

    This was extremely helpful! I’ve been trying to learn to do typographical designs and this smoke style was quite easy to do. here is the link to my result:

    http://hautalken.deviantart.com/art/Intuition-Smoke-138515872

  40. User GravatartaryarL 12th October 2009

    that’s pretty cool
    thank a lot :)

  41. User GravatarSmashing Buzz 31st October 2009

    i love smokey typography where you given great tips and tricks. thanks

  42. User GravatarChingiz 2nd November 2009

    I am from Azerbaidjan and i liked it

  43. FluoCantus 3rd December 2009

    I just got contracted to do some work for a hookah bar and really didn’t have any good ways to make smokey text, but this is great! Thanks so much for helping me keep my job! ;)

  44. User Gravatarmelissa 22nd December 2009

    http://ooohoman.deviantart.com/art/Fail-Gloriously-2-0-147659025

    my attempt! i added color as well =]
    thank you for making such an easy to follow tutorial! my lack of patience thanks you.

  45. User GravatarBeautiful Designs with Smoke Typography 3rd January 2010

    [...] Create Smokey Typography in 12 Steps [...]

  46. User GravatarBd 4th January 2010

    Nice tutorial, great work!

  47. User GravatarTom 17th January 2010

    I love these smoke-effects!
    great! thank you

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