Creating perspective text in Photoshop makes your text appear like it’s placed against a wall or at an angle in your projects. For creative graphics design effects or to blend text into natural features in your photos, this effect works wonders. In this tutorial, you’ll learn how to create perspective text against objects, as well as how to use a vanishing point to create perspective text in Photoshop. So, let’s get started!
How To Create Perspective Text In Photoshop
Creating perspective text requires you to distort your text and change its orientation. You can easily do that with the Free Transform Tool.
To do this, first, enter your text anywhere in your document, by selecting the type tool in the toolbar (T).
Then, write the text you would like in your chosen font, font size, and color.
Next, go to the Layers panel, right-click (Win) or control + click (Mac) the text layer, and choose Convert To Shape. Note that after you convert text to a shape, you won’t be able to edit the text to fix up typos or change any words. Make sure you are happy with the text before this step.
Once the text is converted to a shape, press V on your keyboard to enable the move tool and move your text to the position you want it to be (if it’s not already). In my case, I placed my text on the left side of the image below.
Then, press Control + T (Win) or Command + T (Mac) to enable the Free Transform Tool. This will create control handles around your text.
To put your text in perspective, you need to change its orientation to follow the direction of the object you are placing it on.
As I wanted to place my text on a wall with a diagonal orientation, I had to decrease the left side of my text and increase its right side.
To change the angle of your text, keep the Free Transform Tool active, and click the handle located on the side of the text you want to modify. Then, hold Shift + Control (Win) or Shift + Command (Mac) and drag the letters to the position you want.
In my case, I clicked the handle on the left side of my text while dragging it inward.
Then, I dragged the handle on the bottom left side of the text outward.
You can keep dragging the handles around your text inward or outward until you put your text in the desired perspective.
After distorting your text, you can also resize it. To do this, keep the Free Transform Tool active (Control + T or Command + T) and drag any of the handles of the text up or down (without pressing any other keys on your keyboard).
After creating your perspective text, it’s a good idea to change its appearance to match the image it’s placed on and to look less artificial. You can play around with the text opacity and blending modes to do this.
Notice how my text looked like it was printed on the wall after changing its blending mode. You could also experiment with blend if to get a similar result.
How To Add Text To A Vanishing Point In Photoshop
The free transform tool it’s a good tool for creating perspective text. However, it is sometimes challenging to have enough precision with it. Fortunately, you can make the perspective text more precise by adding your text to a vanishing point. This allows you to perfectly fit your text to the perspective of an object in an image.
To add a vanishing point to text in Photoshop, go to Filter > Vanishing Point. In the vanishing point window, choose the Create Plane Tool and define the surface for your text. Now drag and drop your text onto the defined plane. You can resize your text using the Transform Tool (Cmd/Ctrl + T).
Using this method, you just need to determine the area you will place your text on and then drag your text into that area. Let’s break it down more in-depth.
First, bring your image to Photoshop. Then, grab the type tool (T) and type your text anywhere on the image. You won’t be able to edit your text after this, so make sure there are no typos.
Next, go to the Layers panel, and hold Control (Win) or Command (Mac) while clicking the text layer. This will select your text.
Keep the text layer selected, and then click Control + C (Win) or Command + C (Mac) to copy the text. After that, click the eye icon on the text layer to turn it off.
You will still see a selection around the text area.
To deselect the text, hit Control +D (Win) or Command + D (Mac).
Next, create a new layer on top of the image layer by selecting it. After that, click the plus sign icon at the bottom of the Layers panel.
Next, select the new layer. Then, go up to Filter > Vanishing Point or press Alt + Control + V (Win) or Option + Command + V (Mac).
From the Vanishing Point dialog box, make sure the Create Plane Tool is active.
Then, grab your cursor and click the four corners of the desired area.
In my case, I wanted to put my text on the sunny side of the building, so I selected that area. When you’re done making your selection, you will notice a grid will appear within it.
When this happens, press Control + V (Win) or Command + V (Mac) to bring back the text you copied. Photoshop will paste it on the same spot you wrote it.
Once your text appears, drag it into the selected area.
If it doesn’t fit the area nicely, as happened in my case, press Control +T (Win) or Command + T (Mac) to enable the Free Transform Tool.
Then, you can press any of the handles around your text inward or outward to rescale it. Drag it down to increase the text or drag it up to decrease it. You can also move the handles to the left or right to make the text broader or smaller.
When you are happy with the text size and position, click OK to close the Vanishing point dialog box.
Then, you can go back to the workspace, where you can edit your text by adding effects to it — such as changing the blend mode — or save it the way it is.
The vanishing point method works better with larger pieces of text, while the transform method mentioned earlier works best for individual words.
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