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I was fooling around with text and effects for an AOL Web page project (that never panned out), and discovered this cool effect. So I took it a little further to make it really cold!
Photoshop 3.0, CorelDraw 5... No KPT!? (Come on, I hadda Sharpen Intensity somewhere in there!)
This images works by using 3 layers: on for the background, one for text, and one for the fog effect.
First, I grabbed some cool colours and did the
Cloud/Difference Cloud thing (see NIN Wallpaper,
if you don't know this trick yet). Then comes the tricky part: I
rotated the image sideways, to make the Wind filter go vertical. This
is a cool way to create drips, fur, vines, icicles, stalagmites &
stalactites. Blast practically obliterates the picture. Stagger
makes the rows, well, staggered. This was good for the random
icicles.
Back upright, I applied lighting to the whole thing,
with green as the texture channel as usual. I shined the light up from
the lower left to get the effect of rows of icicles on a cave ceiling receding
back.
Try big, blocky, ice-cube-like text. I put the
letters together in CorelDraw, where they are easier to manipulate and form
into a more solid mass. Then I imported the letters into 'Shop to use
as alpha channels to select the text.
There's dozens of channel ops tricks to do to text
for all kinds of masking effects: embossing, stamping, carving,
satin-pillowing... This one's just an offset up and left, then trimmed
with the original. You have to tweak the corners when you use this
method, but otherwise it's quick & easy.
I loaded the text channel and copied the background
to a new layer. It doesn't look like much to paste something on top
of itself, but you can then manipulate the text layer: brighten it, darken
it, multiply, composite, blah blah blah.
I then loaded the text highlights, did the same copying
thing, and lightened them up a lot. Next, I rotated just the text layer
and applied some Wind to it. Finally, I tweaked the text layer until
I decided on a composite that looked good. I think it's 66% opacity
and Hard Light, which brought out enough of the background to get that thick
hoarfrost effect. I also painted some shadows in behind the letters,
to bring out the lower edges.
The copyright text was set in shop, given a cyan fill,
and lit up to give it that 3D effect.
The final, very subtle layer is foggy clouds of super-cooled
air. This was easy, I just grabbed black and cyanish blue, and made
Clouds on a separate layer. Naturally, I Difference-Clouded a couple
of times -- the 'Shop clouds just aren't that interesting plain.
Difference-Clouding them gives them more interesting swirls and clumps.
Shearing, twirling, distorting, rippling the clouds also gives them
more interesting atmospheric conditions.
I didn't change the colours for this Diffing session.
The weird thing about black is, it doesn't change (well, it's 0, anything
minus 0 stays the same). So the clouds stayed the same uniform colour,
but clumped up nicely.
Then, lowering the opacity, and using Lighten blending
mode created the ethereal fog, with the black areas becoming transparent.
copyright: ©1996 All rights reserved. You may download this image for viewing on your computer. You may NOT print it, upload it anywhere, use it for a commercial or non-commercial illustration or companion piece, place it (or a link to it) on your web page, without requesting and obtaining PRIOR permission from the artist. For contact details, click here.
price list: This image is not currently available as a print. However, if you are interested in obtaining a print, please let me know. It will only print at about 5" tall. For contact details, click here.