Applying Motion Blur to Text
Holy cow, look at all these members! :O That's what I get for being away from the comm for so long - my own comm at that! XD
Anyway, here's a tutorial for applying motion blur to text on an icon, as requested by
psychodids in this post. I used 3.0, but I'm sure it's translatable to other versions. It's hella long and there are many images; dial-up users, proceed with caution. ^^
Stuff is hosted on Photobucket; if you start getting ugly red Xs, let me know and I'll move the pics over to my website. :D
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We'll start with this textless icon of Oded Fehr, made by me from a cap by Ariane:
And we'll turn it into this:
1: PUT ON THE TEXT
In this case, I've got two text layers ("Innocent" and "Until Proven Guilty") and one base (Layer 0). Your layers palette should look like this:
2: DUPLICATE THE BASE
For each text layer you have, you need a copy of your base layer to put it on. Since we have two text layers, we need two base layers:
3: DUPLICATE THE TEXT LAYERS
Now make a copy of each text layer...
4: DUPLICATE THE BASE (AGAIN)
...and make a couple more copies of the base layer. You should have 8 layers now:
5: APPLY MOTION BLUR
This is where the fun starts. ^_^ Apply the motion blur filter to one copy of each text layer. I put mine on "INNOCENT copy" and "UNTIL PROVEN GUILTY copy". I used angle 0, 25 pixels. Now your palette has this:
6: MERGE LAYERS
Merge each text layer onto the base layer directly below it:
If you saved and animated the icon now, it would look like this:
That's just unpleasant. So now, we twiddle with the layers to make it shiny.
7: DUPLICATE AND REARRANGE
Those layers that have the motion blur on the text? Duplicate each one once, then rearrange them like so:
If you saved it now, you'd have something more like this:
Much better, but the speed needs help.
8: DUPLICATE, PREVIEW, DUPLICATE, PREVIEW, RINSE AND REPEAT
You probably want the text without the motion blur on it to stick around long enough for people to see what it says. Since PSE doesn't allow you to change the delay on each frame individually, you'll need to duplicate the frames you want to pause on. I ended up with a total of 22 layers: 9 copies of "INNOCENT", the two blurred-text layers , then 9 copies of "UNTIL PROVEN GUILTY", then the two blurred-text layers. Be sure not to get the blurred-text layers switched about or it'll look funny. I highlighted it on these two screen shots:
The final result:
Voila! Consider your PSE owned. ^_^
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Helpful Hints:
- When you save this, be sure to click "Save for Web," then save it as a .gif with 256 colors.
- Also be sure to click that little box that says "Animate." Otherwise it'll just be, you know, a regular picture.
- My text is like, a size or two too big. 04b_03b and other pixel fonts are much better for this sort of thing, and you can download tons of them from DaFont.com.
Hopefully this will be helpful to you guys. Let me know if you have any problems! ♥
Crossposted to
ps_elements and icon_tutorial
Anyway, here's a tutorial for applying motion blur to text on an icon, as requested by
psychodids in this post. I used 3.0, but I'm sure it's translatable to other versions. It's hella long and there are many images; dial-up users, proceed with caution. ^^Stuff is hosted on Photobucket; if you start getting ugly red Xs, let me know and I'll move the pics over to my website. :D
----
We'll start with this textless icon of Oded Fehr, made by me from a cap by Ariane:
And we'll turn it into this:
1: PUT ON THE TEXT
In this case, I've got two text layers ("Innocent" and "Until Proven Guilty") and one base (Layer 0). Your layers palette should look like this:
2: DUPLICATE THE BASE
For each text layer you have, you need a copy of your base layer to put it on. Since we have two text layers, we need two base layers:
3: DUPLICATE THE TEXT LAYERS
Now make a copy of each text layer...
4: DUPLICATE THE BASE (AGAIN)
...and make a couple more copies of the base layer. You should have 8 layers now:
5: APPLY MOTION BLUR
This is where the fun starts. ^_^ Apply the motion blur filter to one copy of each text layer. I put mine on "INNOCENT copy" and "UNTIL PROVEN GUILTY copy". I used angle 0, 25 pixels. Now your palette has this:
6: MERGE LAYERS
Merge each text layer onto the base layer directly below it:
If you saved and animated the icon now, it would look like this:
That's just unpleasant. So now, we twiddle with the layers to make it shiny.
7: DUPLICATE AND REARRANGE
Those layers that have the motion blur on the text? Duplicate each one once, then rearrange them like so:
If you saved it now, you'd have something more like this:
Much better, but the speed needs help.
8: DUPLICATE, PREVIEW, DUPLICATE, PREVIEW, RINSE AND REPEAT
You probably want the text without the motion blur on it to stick around long enough for people to see what it says. Since PSE doesn't allow you to change the delay on each frame individually, you'll need to duplicate the frames you want to pause on. I ended up with a total of 22 layers: 9 copies of "INNOCENT", the two blurred-text layers , then 9 copies of "UNTIL PROVEN GUILTY", then the two blurred-text layers. Be sure not to get the blurred-text layers switched about or it'll look funny. I highlighted it on these two screen shots:
The final result:
Voila! Consider your PSE owned. ^_^
----
Helpful Hints:
- When you save this, be sure to click "Save for Web," then save it as a .gif with 256 colors.
- Also be sure to click that little box that says "Animate." Otherwise it'll just be, you know, a regular picture.
- My text is like, a size or two too big. 04b_03b and other pixel fonts are much better for this sort of thing, and you can download tons of them from DaFont.com.
Hopefully this will be helpful to you guys. Let me know if you have any problems! ♥
Crossposted to
ps_elements and icon_tutorial