Keetee

This tutorial will walk you through editing text to look like real graffiti on a concrete wall. Hope you like it!

Final Image Preview

Preparation

The only assets we need for this tutorial are a concrete wall background and a stencil-like font. Here are links to what I used:

• Image: “Concrete” by Jazza on stock.xchng
• Font: “Gunplay” by Larabie Fonts on dafont

The Process

Start by opening up your wall image. I cropped mine down to 880 wide, so any measurements I give will be relative to that document size.

Next, select the Horizontal Type Tool and insert some text using your stencil font.

Right-click your type layer and select Rasterize Type. Go to Filter » Blur » Gaussian Blur and select a 1px radius.

Duplicate the layer. Go to Filter » Blur » Gaussian Blur again, but this time select a 3px radius.

Add a pixel mask to your newly blurred layer. (Not sure how masks work? Please read my introduction to Photoshop masking). Select the mask and go to Filter » Render » Clouds. This basically randomizes where your extra blur shows through.

I did this again procedure again with a slightly larger blur. So, 6px radius blur:

And masked with a cloud render. It’s a subtle effect, but those subtleties add to our realism:

Next, let’s add some stray sprays. Take a 65px brush, black, 0% hardness and click on a few of the letters. If you’re using a tablet, try out a 100px brush with pressure sensitivity on.

At this point, select everything except for the wall background and merge. (If you want to hold on to your old layers, consider putting it all in a folder and hiding it.) With a 65px, 0% hardness eraser, randomly erase the edges of a few of the letters.

Ensure you’re on your graffiti layer and go to Edit » Transform » Rotate. Click and drag counter-clockwise to angle it slightly as shown below. If you need to move it, select the Move Tool to do so.

Duplicate your graffiti layer.

Select your bottom graffiti layer. Set the Blending Mode to Overlay and the opacity to 50%.

Now select your top graffiti layer. Add a pixel mask and select the mask. Again, go to Filter » Render » Clouds.

This shows too much of the layer below, so let’s brighten up our layer mask (thus darkening the lettering). Select the top layer mask. Go to Image » Adjustments » Brightness/Contrast and set Brightness to 100.

Finally, merge all layers. Go to Filter » Render » Lighting Effects and use the following settings (don’t forget to adjust the light shape as highlighted):

Final Image

Another example: