Fire Within Text Effect

In this tutorial you will learn how to create a text effect that works great for dark, almost gothic looking text effect. You have seen this effect used all over the place on Halloween brochures for haunted houses, and even a few movie posters.

Here is what you will learn how to create throughout this tutorial:

Here is another example of a possible use for this type of text effect:

Click to enlarge

Step 1.

Create a new document in photoshop of any size, or open an existing document. For this tutorial I will be working with a blank 400x400 document.

For this tutorial you will need to download and install the following font: Erasdust.

Now set up your Text Tool ( ) as I have done here:

And go ahead and type your text out on the canvas using any color you wish:

Step 2.

Press Ctrl+ J on your keyboard to duplicate this layer.

Go to Layer->Rasterize->Layer to rasterize this layer.

Set your foreground and background colors to #D61A1A and #235F5A respectively.

Go to Filter->Render->Difference Clouds.

Press Ctrl+ F on your keyboard several times to repeat the Difference Clouds filter.

Step 3.

Press 'Q' on your keyboard to enable quick mask.

Press Ctrl+ F on your keyboard several times to repeat the Difference Clouds filter again. Your canvas should look somewhat similar to this. Don't worry if the colors are slightly off at this point.

Step 4.

Press 'Q' on your keyboard to disable the quick mask.

Press Ctrl + Shift + ALT + N on your keyboard to create a new layer.

Set your foreground color to white (#FFFFFF) and fill this layer with white:

Step 5.

Double click this layer and apply the following blending options:

Outer Glow:

Bevel & Emboss:

Stroke:

Result:

Step 6.

Select and merge both layers.

Adobe PS 7: Click on the topmost layer, and press Ctrl + E on your keyboard 4 times to merge all layers together.

Adobe PS CS(2): Hold the Shift key down on your keyboard, and click each layer (other than the background) and press Ctrl + E on your keyboard.

Hold down the Ctrl key and click on the layer thumbnail in the layers pallet to make a selection of it's contents.

Your canvas should look like this:

Go to Select->Inverses (or press Ctrl + Shift + i) to invert the selection.

Press the Delete button your keyboard to remove the outer area.

Step 7.

Press Ctrl + J on your keyboard to duplicate this layer.

Go to Image->Adjustments->Invert (or press Ctrl + i) to invert the colors.

Change the layer mode to "Color"

Press Ctrl + E on your keyboard to merge these two layers together.

Here is another example of a possible use for this type of text effect:

Click to enlarge