Crumbling Away

Here's a rather simple look that incorporates a variety of techniques that you'll find useful in many other projects. You'll see how to make east see-through type, how to apply filters to text, and what you need to do to make filters work with a solid color selection.

Let's start with some text. We'll add a few words, using green as our foreground color. To make sure that our type layer is in the center of the image, we'll align it to the Background layer. In the Layers palette, link the two layers and make the Background layer active. Linked layers are aligned in relation to the currently-active layer. And since a background layer can't move, the other layer(s) must be aligned to it. Now make the Move tool active by clicking on it in the Toolbox or by pressing V on the keyboard. In the Options Bar, you'll see the buttons that enable you to align to the left, right, top, bottom, or center. To the right are buttons that distribute linked layers.

Next, we'll duplicate the type layer so that we can work with it in different ways. Duplicate a layer by dragging it to the New Layer button at the bottom of the Layers palette.

Hide the lower type layer so that you can see the effect of the next step. To hide a layer, click on the eye icon in the left column next to the layer in the Layers palette. A layer doesn't need to be active in the palette to show or hide it.

We'll apply a simple layer style to the upper type layer. The easiest way to select a layer effect is to click on the left-most button at the bottom of the Layers palette and select the effect from the pop-up menu. In this case, we'll use Bevel and Emboss, with a hard inner bevel at 200% with a distance of three pixels. We can now make the type itself disappear, leaving the beveled edge visible in one simple motion. In the Layers palette, drag the Fill opacity slider to 0%.

When you use the opacity slider, the content of the layer and any effects or layer style are all affected. Using the Fill slider permits you to change the opacity of the pixels on the layer, leaving the effects unchanged. You can, of course, use the sliders in combination to reduce the opacity of the fill and the effects independently. However, keep in mind that any changes to the Opacity slider are in addition to changes made to the Fill slider.

Make the lower type layer active and visible by clicking on it. (When you activate a hidden layer, it's automatically made visible.) Use the menu command Layer> Rasterize> Type. The content of the layer is changed from vector type to pixels. (The Type tool can no longer be used on this layer to edit the text.) You can also rasterize a type layer by Control-clicking or right-clicking on the layer in the Layers palette and selected Rasterize Layer from the contextual menu.

Hold down the Command key (Mac) or the Control key (Windows) and click on the thumbnail of the newly-rasterized layer in the Layers palette. This loads a selection that includes all non-transparent pixels on the layer.

Press M on the keyboard or select the Rectangular Marquee tool from the Toolbox. Hold down the Option key (Mac) or the Alt key (Windows) and drag a rectangle over the upper part of the text to deselect it. in this case, we'll repeat the process for each line of type individually. Using Option/Alt in conjunction with a selection tool subtracts from an existing selection.

Hold down the Command and Shift keys (Mac) or the Control and Shift keys (Windows) and press J on the keyboard. That cuts the selection from the layer and pastes it onto a new layer.

We now need to give the text some body by applying filters. However, many filters will have no effect on a uniformly-colored selection, such as type. To make the filter work, add some variation to the color with Filter> Noise> Add Noise. Typically you'll use a Gaussian distribution and keep the noise monochromatic. For this image, we'll drag the slider to 40%. To increase the impact of the noise, use the filter Pixelate> Crystallize.

With the layer still active, use the Liquify command. (Photoshop 7 users will find it under the Filter menu, while in Photoshop 6 it's under the Image menu.) Use a hard-edged brush ands drag the bottoms of the letters downward. (Keep the top edges, where the letters meet with the other layer, undistorted.)

Press Q on the keyboard to enter Quick Mask mode. In Quick Mask mode, we can create a selection using a gradient. When we apply filters or adjustments to such a selection, the impact varies according to the gradient. We'll use the Rectangular Marquee tool to make a selection around the upper line of text, then we'll add a black-to-transparent linear gradient from the top, where the two halves of each letter meet, to the bottom of the liquified letters. Using the Rectangular Marquee restricts the gradient, enabling us to apply two separate gradients.

Command-F (Mac) or Control-F (Windows) applies the most recently used filter again with the same settings. Liquify isn't included as a filter for this command, so Crystallize is re-applied. Now we'll remove the color by using Image> Adjustments> Desaturate. With the gradient selections, the filter and adjustment are applied gradually, from the top down for each line of type.

Don't deselect, and use the filter Noise> Add Noise. Drag the slider all the way to the right to maximize the effect. Re-apply the filter five or six more times. Now switch to Filter> Blur> Motion Blur. Set the angle to 90 degrees and blur enough to make the bottoms of the letters fade. Click OK. If some blurring is visible at the tops of the letters, deselect, then use the Rectangular Marquee tool and delete the excess blur.

To finish our image, we'll add a stylized calendar to the background. (This calendar was made in a few seconds in Illustrator 10 with the Rectangular Grid tool.)