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Displaced Effects

 

Here is a quick and easy way to use displacement maps to create a cool grunge look.

Corey Barker

Corey Barker is Executive Producer of PlanetPhotoshop.com and is an Education and Curriculum Developer for the National Association of Photoshop Professionals. Corey has also made numerous appearances on the highly rated podcast, PhotoshopUser TV, and is co-host of Layers TV.

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19 Comments

  1. G.A.™Alexandru said on — October 26, 2008 @ 2:52 pm

    Nice one Corey!I see now u are working now whit cs4 nice ,for me cs4 is like Christmas in
    October .

  2. Dan said on — October 26, 2008 @ 5:33 pm

    This is bizarre. Safari on my Mac will not display the flash tutorials on planetphotoshop or layersmagazine. Yet it works with Youtube and passes the Adobe Flash test page. This has happened within the last week.

  3. Ken Evans said on — October 26, 2008 @ 5:46 pm

    Thanks for all the great Tutorials. Another good one…

  4. DoublyDan said on — October 26, 2008 @ 8:04 pm

    I love the look of your final comp/image that disp really gave the text some punch

  5. KevJumba said on — October 26, 2008 @ 9:10 pm

    Can you make one on creating ravey lights?

  6. Walter D said on — October 26, 2008 @ 10:33 pm

    Dude !!! Another great tut. Your mind must never rest when it comes up to creativity. You are a master.

  7. Jamie said on — October 27, 2008 @ 4:27 am

    Hi Corey, loved this technique it has stacks of potential thank you very much, could you tell me how I lift the text off the black background and place it in another file as you did by placing it on the sky? thanks once again all the best

    Jamie

  8. ScottR said on — October 27, 2008 @ 9:05 pm

    Nice tutorial but, the process that is shown for making the displacement map doesn’t work. I had to make my displacement map using an alpha channel but, the results worked out great. Keep them coming, I love watching your tutorials.

    Thanks
    ScottR

  9. JOHN said on — December 15, 2008 @ 4:18 pm

    WHERE THE HELL AM I GOING TO FIND AN ELEPHANT SKIN FILE???

  10. JOHN said on — December 15, 2008 @ 4:19 pm

    MAYBE I’LL GO TO THE ZOO AN TAKE A PICTURE OF AN ELEPHANT?

  11. Robert said on — December 22, 2008 @ 1:22 pm

    Thanks for the great tutorials.

  12. MrJoey said on — December 31, 2008 @ 10:32 am

    Where Can I find the exact elephant skin image? I’m trying this using some images from google, but it simply doesn’t work as well.. infact it doesn’t even work.

    Thanks for any help.

  13. Dan said on — January 7, 2009 @ 7:04 pm

    What font did you use??
    P.S. Awesome Tutorial!!!!

  14. Jay said on — March 3, 2009 @ 4:13 am

    Very nice! I love this site. Just found it and tried out some tutorials and they all work quite well.

  15. photo restoration retouching said on — March 9, 2009 @ 9:58 am

    This tutorial really teaches you how to personalise your text layers. Every moment I have a break fom my photo restoration, I navigate to planet photoshop and Learn new techniques. Thank you Corey

  16. Oscar said on — March 9, 2009 @ 9:23 pm

    Thank you so much great stuff!!! :D

  17. Worbat said on — April 7, 2009 @ 2:24 pm

    My displace option is grayed out….

  18. Herawan said on — May 5, 2009 @ 3:23 am

    great technic, with the simple step can create an artistic text effect.
    thank’s alot of your tutorial

  19. There’s More than One Way to Photoshop a Cat Pingback on — May 5, 2009 @ 2:20 pm

    [...] By aaabluestocking Playing around with displacement maps; [...]

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Invert to Alpha

When working with vector - created art and the source art is unavailable, modifying the art to create a logo can be a pain, to say the least—particularly when it’s flattened and the background needs to be knocked out.  A careful combination of Invert (Command - I [PC: Ctrl - I]), Color Balance (Command - B [PC: Ctrl - B]), and layer Blending Options (Control-click [PC: Right-click] the layer name) can yield simple background knockouts of one- or two-color logos without making a mess.

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