How to Create a Brain Text Effect in Adobe Photoshop

Final product image — What You'll Be Creating

It's almost Halloween! In this tutorial I will show you how to create a brain text effect in Adobe Photoshop.

This effect is a part of my Halloween Text Effects on GraphicRiver.

Tutorial Assets

The following assets will be used during this tutorial:

Rounds Black font
Brain pattern

Before you start, download and install these assets. It will help you to get the same result.

Introduction

If you are a beginner and are not good at painting, you can download and install the pattern, and skip the next part of the tutorial. To do that, go to Edit > Presets > Preset Manager. Change Preset Type to Patterns.

After that, click on the Load button, find our pattern file on your device, and press Load. That's all—now the patterns have been added. Also, you can drag and drop the pattern file to Photoshop.

1. How to Create the Brain Pattern

First of all we need to create the brain pattern. It will be the base of our text effect.

Step 1

Open Photoshop (I use Photoshop CS6), go to File > New, and create a new 314 x 374 px document.

Step 2

Rename the layer as Background. Fill this one using #d88364 color.

Step 3

Create a New Layer (Layer > New > Layer) with the name Lines. Move it above the Background.

Step 4

Pick the Brush Tool (B), select a Hard Round brush, and go to Window > Brush to change some settings:

Size: 8 px
Spacing: 7%

If you are working with a graphics tablet, also check the Transfer and make sure that Opacity Jitter and Flow Jitter are controlled by Pen Pressure.

Step 5

Set the Foreground Color to #7f2b16. Make sure you are on the Lines layer. Let's start drawing the lines of the convolutions. You can use Eraser Tool (E) to clean or delete part of the image. My result:

Step 6

Duplicate the Lines layer. Change the layer name to Shadow. This layer should be between Background and Lines.

Step 7

Right-click the Lines layer and choose Blending Options to create the Layer Style.

Add an Outer Glow:

Blend Mode: Normal
Opacity: 34%
Noise: 0%
Color:#7f2b16
Technique: Softer
Spread: 0%
Size: 4 px
Contour: Linear
Uncheck Anti-aliased
Range: 50%
Jitter: 0%

Step 8

Right-click the Shadow layer and choose Blending Options to create the Layer Style.

Add an Outer Glow:

Blend Mode: Normal
Opacity: 100%
Noise: 0%
Color:#c05648
Technique: Softer
Spread: 34%
Size: 16 px
Contour: Linear
Uncheck Anti-aliased
Range: 100%
Jitter: 0%

Step 9

Create a New Layer (Layer > New > Layer) with the name Highlight. Move it between the Lines and Shadow layers. Set the Blending Mode for the layer to Vivid Light. Pick the Brush Tool (B) and draw the highlights using #e9a186 color. If your result doesn't look smooth, go to Filter > Blur > Gaussian Blur and set the Radius to 3 px.

Step 10

Now we need to make sure that our image works as a pattern. To do that, stay on the Lines layer, go to Select > All (Control-A) to select the picture, go to Edit > Copy Merged to copy all layers as one, and go to Edit > Paste (Control-V) to paste this layer as a new one. Rename it Pattern. Now select this layer, and go to Layer > Smart Objects > Convert to Smart Object (or right-click on the layer and choose Convert to Smart Object).

Step 11

Pick this Smart Object, go to Filter > Other > Offset, and set these values:

Step 12

As you can see, our future pattern has some issues. To fix it, create a New Layer (Layer > New > Layer), pick the Brush Tool (B), change the Hardness to 30%, and paint over it using the Eyedropper Tool (I) to pick the colors. Result:

Step 13

Create a new Hue/Saturation adjustment layer and decrease the Saturation to -20.

Step 14

Our image is ready, and all you need to do is to create a pattern. Go to Edit > Define Pattern. Type Brain Pattern in the Name field.