How to Create 3D Text Without The Use of Any 3D Tools

How to Create 3D Text Without The Use of Any 3D Tools

When you saw the title, you probably said “Impossible, you can’t create 3D text with Photoshop!” Not entirely accurate. We can create extrusions even if the command isn’t available, adjust the depth and direction of the extrusion path or use shading and all we need is a different point of view on things. Sounds pretty good so far, huh?

Difficulty: beginner
Completion time: 3-5 min
Tools: Photoshop CS3 or later
Resources: Showcard Gothic font

Final Image Preview

3D text

STEP 1

Create a document of 2000 x 2000 px in RGB color mode (File > New…) or a similar file size.

3D text

STEP 2

Grab the Horizontal Type Tool (T), draw a type box with the about the same width as the canvas. Type in your desired text and hit the “OK” button in the top side.

3D text

STEP 3

Duplicate this layer (CTRL+J). Select the original layer, make the text another color, go to the Layers palette and right-click near the layer thumb. Select “Rasterize Type”.

3D text

STEP 4

Hit CTRL+T to enter Free Transform Mode, click the chain between the percentile values and change the value to “99.5%”. Hit Enter.

3D text

STEP 5

Duplicate this layer (CTRL+J). Select its original and repeat STEP 4.

3D text

STEP 6

Repeat this step until you get a decent “extrusion” height.

3D text

3D text

STEP 7

Select all layers except the top-most one and “background” and hit CTRL+E to merge them. Click the “fx” in the Layers palette and select “Blending Options”. Use the settings below.

3D text

3D text

STEP 8

Select the top-most layer and add a similar blending setting, like below.

3D text

Done! 3D Text Without The Use Of Special Tools.

You can explore different extrusion paths if you change the reference point for the Free Transform mode.

3D text

3D text

So there you have it, a simple way to create 3D text by using only Photoshop.

Editor’s Note: This post was originally published in November 2011 and has been completely revamped and updated for accuracy and comprehensiveness.

About

I write articles, Photoshop and Illustrator tutorials and draw pretty stuff for Designious, Pixel77 and Vectorious. I also drink and spill industrial amounts of coffee.

36 Comments on “How to Create 3D Text Without The Use of Any 3D Tools

  1. This is interesting. I followed the tutorial and like the effect.

    I wonder if there is a way to do this so that you don’t have to rasterize it, and therefore can apply the effect and still edit the text.

    Now that would be cool!

    Thanks for sharing.

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