This tutorial uses the Liquify filter in Photoshop in a very small way, but creates a great effect on the text. A good way to 'get your feet wet' with this Photoshop tool - you can play around with the settings with no fear of ruining your work - just undo it and start again!

Step 1

Open a new file using the following settings:

Step 2

Select the Type tool, Verdana font, size 120pt, foreground colour black

Type your required word

Right click on the layer in the layers palette and click Rasterize Type

Duplicate the layer

Turn off the visibility of the original layer

Step 3

Make the copy text layer active

Filter>Liquify – apply the following settings:

Place the cursor close to the left centre of the text and hold down the mouse button.

Drag a straight line through all of the text. You may need to undo and redo this action a couple of times until you are happy with the result.

Click OK to accept the effect.

Rename the layer ‘text1’

Step 4

Duplicate the ‘text1’ layer twice

Turn off the visibility of the original ‘text1’ layer

With the top layer in the layers palette active, double click on the layer in the layers palette to bring up the blending options and apply the following Color Overlay settings:

Now apply the following Color Overlay settings to the layer below:

Step 5

Apply a layer mask to the top layer by clicking on the icon at the bottom of the layers palette

Select the Brush tool, size around 65px soft, round brush, foreground colour black

Mask out the bottom half of the text so you have the top half lighter blue and the bottom half darker blue

Hold down the shift key and select the dark blue layer – so you should have the top 2 layers selected.

Right click and click Merge Layers

Rename the layer ‘toptext1’

Step 6

Make the ‘text1’ layer active

Select the Move tool

Using the arrow keys move the text 8 pixels up and 8 pixels to the right

Double click on the layer in the layers palette to bring up the blending options and apply the following Gradient Overlay settings:

Filter>Blur>Gaussian Blur – apply the following settings:

Reduce the layer opacity to 68%

Step 7

Make your original text layer active (which will be named whatever your word is – mine is ‘LIQUIFY’)

Double click on the layer in the layers palette to bring up the blending options and apply the following Color Overlay settings:

Step 8

Turn off the visibility of the background layer

Right click on any visible layer and click Merge Visible

Restore visibility to the background layer

Step 9

Select the Crop tool and crop your image to the required size

Step 10

Duplicate the background layer

Fill the new layer with grey #5D5C5C

Filter>Render>Lens Flare

Select 105mm Prime

Place the cursor at the approximate beginning of your text

You need to repeat the Lens Flare twice more, placing the light along your text as shown below – you may need to undo and redo to get the placement as required.

Reduce the layer opacity to around 85%

The finished project:

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I hope you enjoyed this tutorial, and I hope you took the opportunity to play with the liquify filter and learn a little about it's capabilities.

Please leave any comments you have below.