Tutorial - Create a Letterpress Text Effect in Photoshop

Today I'm bringing you guys my first photoshop tutorial. I've long admired the letterpress effect I've seen cropping up more and more in blog design.

First up you need to create your background. I find that a background colour that's either a lot brighter or a lot darker than your text works best. To really make the text stand out I gave it a spotlight effect by selecting Filter>Render>Lighting Effects. I kept the default settings the same but changed the selector shape like below.

 



 

Next you need to add your text. Tiny text or very thin text won't work well with this text style. I used the lobster font. I used grey as it stands out well against the background.

 



 

Go to Layer>Layer Styles>Inner Shadow.

Now apply the settings as seen in the image below.

 



 

Next click on Drop Shadow (left hand side of Layer Styles palette)

Apply the settings as seen below.

 



 

Next navigate to the Gradient Overlay options.

Apply settings as I've demonstrated below.

 



 

Voila you should now have created something similar to this.