Create Unique Floating Rock Typography in Photoshop

In this tutorial, I will show you the process of Creating this Unique Floating Rock Typography in Photoshop. You will learn a number of brush tricks, image adjustment tips and practice your selection techniques.

This is an intermediate level tutorial so some steps can be tricky, but why not have a try!

Note: The Photoshop tutorial is done in CS6 – therefore some screenshot may have slighting different layout as in the earlier version. Some brushes are exclusive to Photoshop CS6.

Here is a preview of the final effect I have for this tutorial: (click to enlarge)

Version 1

lava text flatten 2 550x476 Create Unique Floating Rock Typography in Photoshop

Version 2

lava text flatten 2 v2 550x476 Create Unique Floating Rock Typography in Photoshop

OK Let’s get started!

To complete this tutorial, you will need the following stocks:

Rock 1

Rock 2

Step 1

Create a new document sized 800px * 700px with black background. We will now prepare the ground area to support the typo, which we will add onto it later on.

Load the “Rock 1″ stock image into Photoshop and select a portion of it, copy and paste the selection over to our document, and place it onto the canvas as shown below:

1 resize 550x328 Create Unique Floating Rock Typography in Photoshop

Use a soft eraser, remove the following area of the rock texture:

1 erase1 550x230 Create Unique Floating Rock Typography in Photoshop

Add the following adjustment layers on top:

Levels

1 lvs Create Unique Floating Rock Typography in Photoshop

Curves

1 curves Create Unique Floating Rock Typography in Photoshop

and you will have the following effect so far:

1 effect 550x207 Create Unique Floating Rock Typography in Photoshop

Optionally, you can render some subtle cloud to the following area over the ground for extra effect:

1 cloud 550x192 Create Unique Floating Rock Typography in Photoshop

Step 2

Use the type tool, add a letter over the ground with any font you like – I chose the letter “A” and the “Impact” font, which should come with your Photoshop installation:

2 type 550x481 Create Unique Floating Rock Typography in Photoshop

Select the type layer, and drag it over to the “Rock 1″ texture:

2 move 550x342 Create Unique Floating Rock Typography in Photoshop

Copy and paste the rock texture over to our text, then hide the original text layer:

2 paste 550x544 Create Unique Floating Rock Typography in Photoshop

Use a soft eraser, remove the following parts of the rock texture as shown below:

2 erase Create Unique Floating Rock Typography in Photoshop

Add the following adjustment layers as clipping mask to this rock texture layer:

Black and White

2 bw1 Create Unique Floating Rock Typography in Photoshop

Levels

2 lvs1 Create Unique Floating Rock Typography in Photoshop

and you will have the following effect so far:

2 after lv Create Unique Floating Rock Typography in Photoshop

Step 3

We will add some floating rock around the above rock foundation. Load the “Rock 2″ image into Photoshop and use the Quick Selection Tool to select the big rock as shown below:

3 sel1 550x387 Create Unique Floating Rock Typography in Photoshop

Copy and paste the selection over to our document and resize it to a small rock as shown below:

3 resize 550x306 Create Unique Floating Rock Typography in Photoshop

Apply the following image adjustments to this rock:

Black and White

3 bw Create Unique Floating Rock Typography in Photoshop

Levels

3 lvs Create Unique Floating Rock Typography in Photoshop

We will then duplicate this rock a few times, rotate, resize each of the rock until they form into an abstract pattern as shown below:

3 attach Create Unique Floating Rock Typography in Photoshop

3 attach more 550x492 Create Unique Floating Rock Typography in Photoshop

Use the blur tool to blur out some of the rock to add some dynamics and depths for the image:

3 blur 550x280 Create Unique Floating Rock Typography in Photoshop

and here is the effect so far:

3 effect1 Create Unique Floating Rock Typography in Photoshop

Step 4

We will add some brush painting to connect the rocks. Grab the “Square Pastal” brush from the brush pane:

4 brush 550x384 Create Unique Floating Rock Typography in Photoshop

Use the red colour and paint the pattern as shown below:

4 paint 550x627 Create Unique Floating Rock Typography in Photoshop

You can add some yellowish coloured brush strokes onto the image, as shown below:

4 more lava 550x471 Create Unique Floating Rock Typography in Photoshop

Then, duplicate this painting layer once and compress the duplicated layer down, place it above the ground as shown below:

4 compress 550x197 Create Unique Floating Rock Typography in Photoshop

Make sure you set this duplicated brush painting layer’s blending mode to “overlay”:

4 overlay 550x297 Create Unique Floating Rock Typography in Photoshop

And you will the following effect so far:

lava text flatten 2 550x476 Create Unique Floating Rock Typography in Photoshop

I add some further colour balance adjustments to the image, and came up with this alternative version:

lava text flatten 2 v2 550x476 Create Unique Floating Rock Typography in Photoshop

You can further add some filter effects such as liquify, distort and perhaps water colour, but that’s totally up to you!

That’s it for this tutorial! Hope you enjoy going through it and find it useful. Drop me a comment below if you have any question.

Till next time, have a great day!