STEP 1 - Blocking the shapes of the letters for the 3D Text Photoshop tutorial

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STEP 1A - Create a new layer and name it text_dark_color. Now make sure that you switch from layers to the paths menu. This is show in image 1A. Click on the button create new path. Rename the path to text_dark_color. After that click the P key on your keyboard to activate the Pen tool and draw a shape similar to image Step 1A.

NOTE : Most of this tutorial is going be creating shapes load them as selections and fill them with color or gradient so plz pay a lot of attention to STEP 1 and STEP 2.

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STEP 1B - Now what you have to do is to repeat the STEP 1A. You are going to repeat the step another 2 times. Create 2 new layers named text_mid_color and layer text_light_color.For those 2 layers you create another 2 paths and name them accordingly to the layer names. All of this should like on image 1D. The shapes that are going to be drawn should look like in image 1E.

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STEP 2 - Blocking the letters with color

STEP 2A - Make sure that your text_dark_color layer is selected.After that select the text_dark_color path.With that done you have to be on the Paths tab and then click the button Load path as a selection. Its shown in image 2a.

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STEP 2B - Now with the active selection made press the G key or just mouse click over the Gradient Tool. Make a gradient with this values (R:40,G:128,B:189) on the left side and (R:94,G:180,B:247). This is shown in image 2b.

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STEP 2C - With the active selection still on make a gradient from the bottom of the letters to the top. The result of this action can be seen in image 2c.

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STEP 2D - Now what you have to do is go to Paths and select text_dark_color path. Click the A key on your keyboard to activate the Direct Selection Tool. Now select the path in the inside of the P letter that we have created and load it as a selection. After that go to layers and make sure that text_dark_color layer is selected and press the Delete key on your keyboard. This will delete the inside of the P letter. The result is shown in image 2d.

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STEP 3 - Finishing the blocking of the letters with color

STEP 3A - Now what you have to do is repeat STEP 2 for the other 2 layers.For the text_mid_color layer use this gradient (R:57,G:143,B:202 on the bottom ) and (R:123,G:193,B:248, as a value that is going to be on the top),you can see the shape for the text_mid_layer is colored with red color.And for the text_light_color use this gradient (R:87,G:167,B:223, at the bottom of the gradient) and (R:159,G:208,B:246, at the top of the gradient),you can see that the shape for the text_light_color is with green color.This is how the result should look like - image 3a.

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STEP 4 - Start adding highlights to the letters

First thing you have to do is to create a new layer and name it highlights.By selecting the paths that we already have created select them and use them to add some highlights to the the letters.

STEP 4A - Make sure that the layer highlights is selected. Go to Paths Tab and select text_light_color path. Press the A key on your keyboard and select one of the shapes on top of the U letter. Load that path as a selection. Now pick the Gradient Tool and pick the white to transparent gradient.

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Now repeat STEP 4 to more areas of your choice. You can see where i have picked the places for highlights in image 4c.

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STEP 5 - Adding shadows to the letters

STEP 5A - First of all create a new layer and name it shadows.Set the layer to be on top of text_dark_color.You have to know that adding shadows to the letters is the same process of adding the highlights. So STEP 5 is repeating STEP 4, but this time instead of a white to transparent gradient, we will use black to transparent gradient. The result is shown in image 5a.

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STEP 6 - Adding dark shadow at the bottom of the letters where they meet the ground

Create a new layer and name it Bottom_Dark_Shadow.The layer should be place right beneath the text_mid_color. That means that it will be placed at the bottom of the layers with the color and just above the 3D scheme layer. Now press the P key on your keyboard to activate the pen tool and draw lines as shown in image 6a. You can place them in a new path if you like it doesn't matter.I have named my path Letter_ground_dark_shadow.Now load those paths as active selections and fill them with black color.The result is show in image 6a.

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STEP 7 - Adding highlights casted from the ground to the letters

STEP 7A - The ground always reflects part of the casted light.This light hits some bottom areas of the letters and makes them just a little bit brighter then other areas. Create a new layer and name it Bottom_reflected_light. Set the layer to be just on top of the shadows layer.Now press the P key on your keyboard to activate the Pen Tool and draw a shape similar to the one shown in image 7a.In the Paths tab name the path as Bottom_reflected_light.Load it as an active selection and with the Bottom_reflected_light layer selected, fill the selected layer with white color.

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STEP 7B - This step is a personal choise.You can leave it like that but its to strong for me. So what i did is lowered the the opacity of the Bottom_reflected_light from 100% to 30%. This is the result that i got (image 7b).

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STEP 8 - Adding ground shadow to the letters

STEP 8A - Create a new layer and name it ground_shadow.Now switch from Layers tab to Paths tab.In the Paths tab create a new path and name it ground_shadow. With the new path ground_shadow layer selected press the P key on your keyboard to activate the and start drawing some shapes.Then after the shape is created, activate the Gradient tool and and apply a black to transparent gradient to the 2 ground shadow shapes.The path shape is shown in the top of image 8a and the gradient applied is shown in the same image at the bottom.

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STEP 8B - Now with the same ground_shadow layer selected pick the Dodge Tool by clicking O on your keyboard. With the Range set to Shadows and Exposure set to 15 dodge a little bit the shadow shown as in image 8b at the top.The effect can be seen in image 8b at the bottom.

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STEP 8C - Pick the P key on your keyboard to activate the Pen Tool. Draw a shape similar to the one shown in image 8c at the top. Now go to the Paths tab and load the shapes as active selection.This will allow to us to make the shadow lighter at certain areas.WIth that done pick the O key on your keyboard to activate the Dodge Tool and Dodge the shadow with more intensity.Set the Range to Highlights and Exposure to 15 %.Now Dodge a little bit.The result of the Dodging can be see at the bottom of image 8c.

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STEP 9 - Adding brightness on the letters

STEP 9A - Create a new layer and name it Brightness.As before pick the P key and draw some shapes and fill them with white. You can see how it looks like on the image 9a.

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STEP 9B - Now with the Brightness layer selected go to Filter -> Blur -> Gaussian Blur. Set the Radius to 47 px and click OK.Instructions are shown on image 9b.

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This is what you should get.From this point you can make some tweaks that you like or enhance this 3D text with more design ideas you have.

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