Abstract Glowing Background

This tutorial, you will learn how to draw different shapes, apply gradient, blend different shapes in the background.

A Vibrant Space Nebula

In this tutorial you learn how to create a detailed nebula quickly & easily infront of a beautiful starfield.

Alien Invasion!

In this tutorial, you will learn to create an image of alien invasion.

Cool Eclipse Effect

This tutorial you learn to create Cool Eclipse Effect.

Making of Space Scene

Make a Space Scene from this tutorial.

Space Explosion Photoshop

This tutorial shows you how to create your own space scene using three stock photos and Adobe Photoshop.

Blendfu

Blendfu is a unique site for obtaining Photoshop brushes: the site allows you to preview and test individual brushes in a brush set, saving you a ton of time in having to install them. Blendu has plenty of categories so you won’t have a hard time finding exactly the theme and look that you’re searching for. Besides Photoshop brushes, Blendfu also provides GIMP brushes.

BrushKing

Blendfu is a unique site for obtaining Photoshop brushes: the site allows you to preview and test individual brushes in a brush set, saving you a ton of time in having to install them. Blendu has plenty of categories so you won’t have a hard time finding exactly the theme and look that you’re searching for. Besides Photoshop brushes, Blendfu also provides GIMP brushes.

DeviantArt

DeviantArt, the leading online graphic design community, has a great quantity of high-quality, user-submitted Photoshop brushes. There are many brushes to peruse and download, including popular themes of fractals, splatters and flourishes, as well as kitschy and unique sets like angel wings and anime eyes.

Brusheezy

Brusheezy indexes a lot of Photoshop brushes gathered from all over the internet. You can filter brushes by category, Photoshop version (for compatibility), or sort them by Downloads, number of comments, user ratings and the date they were added. Apart from Photoshop brushes, Brusheezy also presents Photoshop Patterns.

PS Brushes.net

PS Brushes.net currently archives over 500 brush sets. What’s great about PS Brushes.net is that they provide previews of each brush in the set so that you can see precisely how each brush looks, as well as what their dimension (in width) is. PS Brushes.net has many categories to select from, making it easier to navigate through the site.

QBrushes.com

Qbrushes.com is a Photoshop resource site displaying high-quality Photoshop brushes from different talented designers. There are many findability features on the site, making it easy for you to hunt down the exact types of brushes you need. For example, you can browse by tags, or browse by categories like Abstract or Grunge.

myPhotoshopBrushes.com

myPhotoshopBrushes.com aggregates and shares Photoshop brushes from various designers and artists willing to share their wonderful creations. Besides quality brushes, the site also offers other Photoshop resources, such as Photoshop patterns and custom shapes.

FBrushes

FBrushes currently showcases over 4,000 individual Photoshop brushes and over 200 brush sets. The site groups brush sets in an intuitive manner, into themes such as Ornamental and Splatters.

Designers brush

Designers Brush is a collection of high quality Photoshop brushes. If you’re looking for Photoshop patterns, well, they have that as well.

Final Result

Here’s a preview of what we’re about to create.

Creating the Photoshop document

1 Let’s start with the basics: setting up the Photoshop document. Open up Photoshop and create a new document (Ctrl + N). We’ll start with a small canvas, a 550px by 550px document, but know that later on, you’ll be able to adjust the canvas size of your project.

Styling the Background Layer

2 We’ll add a Gradient Overlay layer style onto the default Background layer. To do this, we need to make the layer editable. Double-click on the Background layer in the Layers Panel, which will result in opening the New Layer dialog box. Enter a Name for the layer (by default – it’s Layer 0); I’ve named mine Background.

3 Double-click on the Background layer’s thumbnail in the Layers Panel to open up the Layer Styles dialog box. We want a vertical color gradient that transitions from darker blue (#003471) at the bottom, to a lighter blue (#448CCB) at the top. To begin, check the Gradient Overlay checkbox to apply the layer style. Then click on the color gradient on the right of the Gradient option to open up the Color Gradient Editor.

4 Double-click on the left Color Stop and enter the color value of a dark blue shade (#003471) which will be the color at the bottom of the canvas. Do the same for the right Color Stop, but this time, enter a lighter blue color (#448CCB). Let’s move the Color Midpoint to a Location of around 60% to make the darker blue color more dominant in the color gradient.

5 Lets give the background a light source from the top left corner of the canvas. Grab the Brush Tool (B) from the Tools Panel. Set the brush tip to a rounded brush (I used Airbrush Soft, but feel free to explore your options). Set the Diameter option to 500px, Opacity option to 60%, and Flow option to 70% in the Options Bar.

6 Create a new layer (Ctrl + Shift + N) on top of the Background layer where we will apply the light source, call it Background light source.
7 Set your Foreground color to white (#FFFFFF). With the Brush Tool (B) still active, click on the top left corner of your canvas.

Creating the Inset Type

8 Use the Horizontal Type Tool (T) to write some text onto the canvas. When choosing a font family, it’s best to choose something that’s bold and thick to more readily show the inset effect. This type effect also works best on larger font sizes. I used Rockwell Std set to Bold and with the font size set to 30px (you can set these options in the Options bar). The color doesn’t matter because we will use a Gradient Overlay layer style (later on) that will supersede whatever foreground color you used.

9 Let’s center the text in our canvas. In the Layers Panel, make sure the text layer is the active layer. Select the entire canvas by choosing Select > All (Ctrl + A). Then choose Layer > Align Layers to Selection > Vertical Centers. This will center the text vertically. With the canvas still selected, align the text horizontally by choosing Layer > Align Layers to Selection > Horizontal Centers to center our text in the middle of the canvas.

Adding the Inset Typography layer styles

10 We’ll be adding three layer styles on the Inset Typography text layer: a Gradient Overlay, an Inner Shadow, and a Drop Shadow. This is all we’ll need in order to get the inset text effect. Start by right-clicking on the Inset Typography text layer in the Layers Panel and then choosing Blending Options – this will open up the Layer Styles options dialog (alternatively, double-clicking on the layer in the Layers Panel will perform the same action of opening the dialog box).

11 Lets work on the Gradient Overlay first. Check the box beside Gradient Overlay to apply this style to the text. We’ll want a similar color gradient as the background: a vertical color gradient with a darker color at the bottom of the text, and a lighter color at the top.

12 Double-click on the color gradient beside the Gradient option to open up the Color Gradient Editor. For the left Color Stop, choose a dark blue color (darker than the dark blue color of the Background layer). I chose #022854. For the right Color Stop, choose a lighter blue color than the left Color Stop, but still a little darker than the dark blue color of the Background layer. I chose #0F498C.
13 Because the Inner Shadow layer style that we’ll apply next will be at the top left of the text, lets make the lighter blue color more dominant in the color gradient to make the Inner Shadow more visible; do this by moving the Color Midpoint Location to around 30%.


14 Let’s apply the Inner Shadow layer style next. Check the box beside Inner Shadow . Keep the angle at 120^o so that the Inner Shadow’s light source comes from the top left, congruent with the light source we created earlier.
15 Changing the values of the Opacity, Distance and Size options will determine how pronounced or how subtle the inset effect will be. I chose to set the Opacity at 50%, the Distance at 2px and the Size at 3px because I wanted it to be visible, yet not exaggerated. Experiment with these option values until you get just the right inset effect.


16 Finally, we’ll apply a Drop Shadow to make the text effect consistent with the light source. We want it to be very subtle, just enough to accent the text effect. Start by checking the box beside Drop Shadow.
17 Change the Blend Mode option to Normal to make the drop shadow less feathered.
18 Change the Shadow color from the default (which is black) to a bright blue color. I used the Eyedropper Tool (I) from the Tools Panel to sample a color from the top left corner where the light source was to start, and tweaked it until I got the color I was happy with: #A8C9E6.
19 I wanted the drop shadow to be subtle and small, so I used 1px for the Distance option to locate the drop shadow just at the bottom right of the text, and 2px for the Size option. I then lowered the Opacity option using the slider so that the drop shadow isn’t too prominent, and I was satisfied with it at 30% opacity. Also, note that it’s important to keep the angle of the drop shadow at 120^o so that it’s consistently angled with the background’s light source and the Inner Shadow layer style.


Download the source PSD file of this tutorial here