This Photoshop tutorial will be teaching you how to create a 3D summer text effect without using Photoshop 3d capabilities! This effect is great for summer party invitations or cards, and can be easily changed to fit any season or holiday! This tutorial assumes you have advanced knowledge of basic Photoshop functions such as adjustment layers and layer effects. There are quite a number of steps involved so just hang in there, patience brings results!
Level: Advanced. ~ Program: Photoshop CS6 ~ Time: 45 min

Resources you will need to duplicate the results:

• Beach: jedimaster @#32344681
• Coconut: ljupco @#7329749
• Cocktail: Fedor Selivanov @#8045939
• Sand: daizuoxin @#31853935
• Sandman: emprize @#32072687

Note: At the end of each step there is an image of what my layers look like at the point of that step in case you get lost!

Let’s get started…

Step One: Background

First, we will create our base. While you could always hand paint this, we just be blurring out our main beach scene. This will ensure we have matching colors.

1. Paste your beach scene into a new document.
2. Go to Filter > Blur > Gaussian Blur and blur it a substantial amount. Essentially it should look like a gradient.
3. Using the Move Tool and Transform Controls pull your background stretching it up.

1. Create a Brightness/Contrast adjustment layer above your background and set it to Brightness: 9.
2. Above your B/C layer create a new layer and set it to "Soft Light".
3. With a very large, soft round brush paint back on the corners of your canvas and white in the middle. Set the layer to around 25%.
4. Create a new layer and set it to "Multiply".
5. Paint black on the corners of your canvas with the same brush as before again. Set the opacity to 45%.
6. Group all layers so far together and name it "Background"

Click here to see the suggested layer layout!

Next Step Two: Summer Font

... continues on the next page!