Easter is coming soon and what better way to usher it in with a special tutorial featuring beautiful tulip blooms! In this edition, I will be showing you how to create a typography using flowers. We will be mainly using layer masks and the Puppet Warp tool in photoshop to achieve this effect. Let’s begin!
Software: Adobe Photoshop
Time: 2 hours
Level: Intermediate
Stock Photos Needed:
Green Grass Background. Image ID : 10609229
Yellow Tulip Flower: Image ID : 19704711
Pink Tulip Flower: Image ID : 19704709
White Tulip Flower: Image ID : 19704710
Step One
For your background you want to choose something minimal. I am using a simple grass field and sky image (ID:10609229).
Second, with a plain dark font, type out “EASTER” and position it in the middle of the image. The font you use doesn’t matter!
Now you want at least three different tulip images, with long stems. Extract them from their backgrounds using your preferred method.
Once you have extracted your flowers from their backgrounds, group them together and name the group “Original Flowers”. You will be constantly duplicating these layers as needed. A quick way to duplicate a layer is to hold Alt and then click and drag the layer either up or down.
Step Two
We are going to create the “Easter” type. Duplicate one of your flower layers, drag the layer out of the “original flower” group, and position it so that it will be the back of your “E”
Duplicate another flower image, and using the Lasso Tool, select part of a leaf.
Delete the rest of the flower:
Position it so that it makes the top line of the “E”.
You are going to do this for all of your straight lines. Try and use different leafs for each line, also try rotating and flipping the leafs for variety.
* Try to keep it to about 3-4 leafs per letter.
Once you are done with a letter, group all the leafs for that letter together and name it the letter and “leafs”. So in this case I named it “E Leafs”. Do that for your E, A, T and second E.
Step Three
Now we are going to work on the curved letters. The only difference between the curved letters and the straight letters is that to achieve the curve we are going to use the Puppet Warp tool.
First, just like you did before, duplicate a flower and remove a long leaf. Position it in the middle of the S.
Now, go to Edit > Puppet Warp. You will see something like this:
The Puppet Warp tool works by placing pivot points, and then bending the image around those points. Simply click to place your pivots like you see below:
Now you want to grab and pull the middle part of the leaf to make a curve.
And then grab and pull the bottom part of the leaf as well.
If the image is blurry go to Filter > Sharpen > Smart Sharpen to sharpen it. You will get something like this:
I did it two more times, with two more leafs, to complete the S. Group all the leafs used for the S together and name the group “S Leafs”.
The R was done by combining the two methods. First the straight lines:
Then the Curve. Group all the leafs used for the R together and name the group “R Leafs”.
Go to your “EASTER” type layer and delete it.
Step Four
We are going to add shadows to the individual leafs so they are not as flat looking.
Go into your “E Leafs” folder and clip a new layer into the leaf that is creating the top line of the E. Keep the mode set to “Normal”. With a soft round brush set to a dark green (#121d00) paint a shadow where the leaf creating the side of the E overlaps the top leaf.
Do this to ALL the leafs on all your letters. Once you are done, group all your “letter leafs” groups into one big group and name it “Easter”
To create more contrast we are going to add more high and lowlights. Clip a new layer into the “Easter” group and set it to “Soft light”. With a soft round brush, set to 30% flow, paint black where the areas are darker.
Above that layer clip a new layer and do the same thing, but only this time use white and paint where the areas would be catching the most light.
Step Five
To make the typography stand out more we are going to add a glow behind it.
Duplicate your “Easter group” and merge it together. Place it below the original Easter group. Bring the Fill down to 0%. Using the layer effect “Outer Glow” and a large light green (#a9e100) glow to the layer. Since your “Fill” is set to 0%, only the glow should show.
Create a new layer below that and paint white with a giant brush, bring the layer opacity down to 80%
Group the two layers together and name it “Glow”
Step Six
Go back into the glow group and duplicate the layer with the glow on it. Remove the glow and bring the fill back to 100%. We are going to use this layer to create a shadow.
Bring the layer you just duplicated out of and below the “glow” group and go to Image > Adjustments > Hue/Saturation and bring the Lightness down to -100.
Using the move/transform tool create something similar to what you see below:
Go to Filter > Blur > Gaussian blur and blur it out. The amount of blurness you add is up to you and will depend on the size of your image.
Step Seven
To finish it off, I added three Color Lookup adjustment layers on top of everything. In the order from top to bottom they are:
“TealOrangePlusContrast” set to 35%
“Crisp_Warm” set to 35%
“FallColors” set t0 61%
I also added a “Happy” type in the font “League Script Thin” and added a white stroke layer effect to it.
And you’re done! Use this typography in other ways as well, whether it be an invitation, greeting or any projects you may have!