Retro Red Text in Photoshop

In this tutorial you will be creating a 3D styled ‘Retro Red Text’ graphic. This tutorial is aimed at beginners, this tutorial uses basic Photoshop features such as distort, duplicating layers, photoshop effects and blending options.

Step 1 Create a new canvas (File -> New), I have set mine to 615×500 to give me a little space, but in reality we will need less than half of this.

Step 2 Select the Text Tool and key in any text, we have used ‘RetroRedText’ for demonstration purposes. Select the font Trebuchet MS if it available in your list of fonts.

Step 3 Right click your text layer and ‘Convert to Shape’.

Step 4 Go to (Edit -> Transform Path -> Distort) distort.

Step 5 Drag the points as shown below.

Step 6 Right click the layer and select ‘Blending Options’. Select stroke and set the outside colour to black (#000000). Select colour overlay and set the colour to grey (#999999).

Step 7 Right click the layer and duplicate it. Move the new layer with your arrow keys up 2 and left 2. Repeat this process another three times.

Step 8 Your canvas should now look like the text below.

Step 9 Merge all you layers excluding the background.

Step 10 Visit (Image -> Adjustments -> Exposure) and move the Exposure slider to the far right and the Gamma slider to the far left.

Step 11 Now visit (Image -> Adjustments -> Replace Color) and click the first colour block and make this black (#000000). Then select the bottom colour block and make this red (#FF0000).

Step 12 Visit the Channel Mixer by going to (Image -> Adjustments -> Channel Mixer) and set the Red channel to 200%.

Step 13 Got to the Levels setting (Image -> Adjustments -> Levels) and drag the middle slider to the far right.

Step 14 Now visit (Filter -> Artistic -> Cutout…) and hit enter once the new window has opened. Thats it! Your final image is below in Retro Red Style.

Please leave any comments if you liked the tutorial, disliked the tutorial or need any help.

slithering

awesome!
far east

another nice trick of photoshop!
near east

:P nice and bad, you got 2 ratings from me :)
WhiteLight~

i cant see the exposure option in adjustments. Im using version 7.
Tarun

Cool !! ;)
kasia

Hey, awesome tutorial!
And really pretty result – which might be really handy! :)

What I was wondering… what is the Exposure/Gamma thing really doing?…
Will it affect also other textures the same way?… Like thinning the dark black areas?…
Answers4PC

Nice tutorial, helped me lots.
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http://www.facebook.com/silentsarah Sarah Blo

this is all mess.. the steps from 10 til end won’t work to me..
http://www.doeswhat.com DoesWhat

Hi, what version of Photoshop are you using? Please feel free to email where you’re up to – mail@[this-domain] and I’ll take a look.
http://www.facebook.com/silentsarah Sarah Blo

I’m using Photoshop cs5. after step nine. all of the next step won’t work to me.. like the Exposure, Replace Color, Channel Mixer and so on.. :(