Create Chilling Ice Text Effect In Photoshop

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.

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

Wall Texture

Font

Ice Texture 1

Ice Texture 2

Step 1

Create a new document sized 1200px * 700px with black background. Load the wall texture into Photoshop, select a portion and paste it onto our document:

Use a soft eraser to remove the following parts of the wall texture:

Apply the following 2 image adjustment layers on top of the wall texture layer:

Black and White

Levels

and here is the effect so far – as you can see, only the centre portion is visible after we apply the adjustment layers:

We will use this as a base for our text.

Step 2

We will work on our texts and start applying the ice texture in this step. Use the font you downloaded, type some letters onto the canvas:

Load the “ice texture 1” image into Photoshop, select the text layer and move the selection over to this texture and copy the selection:

Paste the texture back onto the texts and cover them as shown below:

Apply the following 2 adjustment layers as clipping masks to this ice texture layer:

Black and White

Levels

Repeat the above step and grab another piece of the ice texture:

Paste it onto our document and set it as a clipping mask to the “Levels” adjustment layer you added just now:

Change the blending mode of this second ice texture layer to “Hard Light”, and apply the following image adjustments:

Black and White

Levels

and here is the effect you will have so far:

Step 3

We will add some extra ice blocks onto our image in this step. Load the “ice texture 2” image into Photoshop and select one triangle piece:

Copy and paste it behind our text layer, reduce its size as shown below:

Repeat the above step and add a few more ice blocks onto our document:

Step 4

We will add some extra effect onto our image with the “ice texture 2”. Grab a piece from this stock image and copy it over to our document, resize it as shown below:

Apply the following adjustments to this compressed image:

Black and White

Levels

Change the layer blending mode of this layer to “Screen”:

and you will have the following effect:

Use a soft eraser to fade the edges of this layer:

and you will have the following effect:

Step 5

We will add some flying ice blocks to the image. Again we grab a piece from the “ice texture 2” image:

Copy and paste the selection over to our document, resize it to a smaller scale:

Use the blur tool to blur it a bit to add some dynamics to the image:

Repeat the above step and add a few more pieces in, make sure you vary the size and angle of each ice layer:

Step 6

We’re almost done! For some final adjustments, I put a curves adjustment layers on top to add some colours:

I also added some cloud into the image with a cloud brush, and here is my final effect: (click to enlarge)

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!