Need help ASAP! How to do this in Illustrator instead of Photoshop (Burnt wood text)

[designer101]

I was able to look at the effects - question; how did you expand the text to create the "shadow" text under the text on top?

[mwenz]

Select the top text and look at the Appearance Panel.



There is a copy that is in the background but above the wood image. Look at the Layers Panel for it. That copy in the layers panel really doesn't contribute much though. All it does is ever so slightly soften the brunt text. You can select it, then open the Appearance Panel and look at the applied effects for it.

Did I mention the Appearance Panel? :^) Basically, all things effects-wise are always best handled in the Appearance Panel. So when you open someone's file, either directly select something using the Selection Tool (black pointer) or via the Layers Panel, then open the Appearance Panel to see what effects are applied and what their stacking order is. One can drag the effects in the Appearance Panel up and down and the effect will act upon the selection ina different manner.

Take care, Mike

[mwenz]

I was able to look at the effects - question; how did you expand the text to create the "shadow" text under the text on top?

Argh, I may not have answered your actual question.

All text can be converted to curves and or an image directly. Which order i did I dunno. Doesn't really matter. Once I had an image version, I applied a bit of Gaussian Blur then added Film Grain. Dragged it below the top text and...cannot remember what the layer blend mode was, but it is listed in the Appearance Panel.

Mike

[designer101]

Argh, I may not have answered your actual question.

All text can be converted to curves and or an image directly. Which order i did I dunno. Doesn't really matter. Once I had an image version, I applied a bit of Gaussian Blur then added Film Grain. Dragged it below the top text and...cannot remember what the layer blend mode was, but it is listed in the Appearance Panel.

Mike

Hi Mike - first off, thanks so much for helping me with this. I'm still confused as to how you expanded the BURNT letters to create that second layer (below the BURNT text layer on top and above the wood grain) - I can figure out the effects through the appearance panel - but I'm not sure how you got that BURNT text to be larger than the BURNT text layer on top and it also looks like the bottom BURNT layer text is not only larger, but the letters are closer together and connected - rather than separated like the top layer of BURNT text - I hope I'm making sense - I'm probably lacking the proper terminology here. - It seems in photoshop to get this same effect you select "expand selection" - then specify the number of pixels to expand so you get that bottom "shadow" effect - I just can't seem to duplicate it Illustrator since there isn't an "expand selection" option.

[mwenz]

You are welcome. I'll work up a step by step later today that should clear it up.

[mwenz]

OK. It's been a long time since I made that file and it took a bit of noggin scratching to figure out what I did.

Make a copy of the burnt text.
Delete the effects using the Appearance panel.
Set the Opacity to 100%
Change the color to black.
Add enough of a stroke (in black) to obtain the amount of over-sized look to the burnt text copy. I think I used about 16 pt.
Create a transparent rectangle behind the burnt text copy large enough around the burnt text copy so the following effects don't get clipped by its bounding box.
Select both the text and the transparent rectangle.
Now using the Object menu, convert to an image using the Rasterize command.
Effect, Blur, Gaussian blur. 20 pixels should be about right.
From the Effect menu, Artistic, Film Grain. For the values on the right, I used (from top to bottom) 4,0,10.

Now, your copy likely is going to be lighter. I used the Phantasm plug-in to darken it. Shouldn't matter too much in the eventual effect.

In the appearance panel with the burnt text copy selected, click on the Opacity link. Set it to Color Burn, 20%.

Take care, Mike

[designer101]

OK. It's been a long time since I made that file and it took a bit of noggin scratching to figure out what I did.

Make a copy of the burnt text.
Delete the effects using the Appearance panel.
Set the Opacity to 100%
Change the color to black.
Add enough of a stroke (in black) to obtain the amount of over-sized look to the burnt text copy. I think I used about 16 pt.
Create a transparent rectangle behind the burnt text copy large enough around the burnt text copy so the following effects don't get clipped by its bounding box.
Select both the text and the transparent rectangle.
Now using the Object menu, convert to an image using the Rasterize command.
Effect, Blur, Gaussian blur. 20 pixels should be about right.
From the Effect menu, Artistic, Film Grain. For the values on the right, I used (from top to bottom) 4,0,10.

Now, your copy likely is going to be lighter. I used the Phantasm plug-in to darken it. Shouldn't matter too much in the eventual effect.

In the appearance panel with the burnt text copy selected, click on the Opacity link. Set it to Color Burn, 20%.

Take care, Mike

one word Mike - AWESOME!! Thank you so so much for taking the time to do this and help me out - I really appreciate it - you have no idea how much!

Cheers!

[mwenz]

You're very welcome. And it's always good to hear back something has been of help, so thank you for your post.

Take care, Mike

[designer101]

You're very welcome. And it's always good to hear back something has been of help, so thank you for your post.

Take care, Mike

Hi Mike!

Ok - I'm quite embarrassed by this - but I'm about to pull my hair out; as I was in the process of trying to re-create the burnt text I stumbled upon a really nice effect I made on my text; it consists of 3 layers of the text - the main bottom text with a fill and stroke color, the layer on top is a mask with a gradient fill and then the top layer is 100% overlay with a black fill. I now need to apply these same effects to another text object and I can not for the life of me figure out what I did so I can re-create it - the primary problem I'm having is with that middle layer - when I open the appearance panel and go the opacity options - it shows this layer has a clipping mask; when I release the mask - the image shows the word as a gradient surrounded by a black box - I have no idea how I did this - in your infinite wisdom - could you take a look at my file and see if you can tell what I did? Here's a link to download it: http://www.hosting456.com/smokin.ai

Thank you in advance

[mwenz]

Hi Mike!

Ok - I'm quite embarrassed by this - but I'm about to pull my hair out; as I was in the process of trying to re-create the burnt text I stumbled upon a really nice effect I made on my text; it consists of 3 layers of the text - the main bottom text with a fill and stroke color, the layer on top is a mask with a gradient fill and then the top layer is 100% overlay with a black fill. I now need to apply these same effects to another text object and I can not for the life of me figure out what I did so I can re-create it - the primary problem I'm having is with that middle layer - when I open the appearance panel and go the opacity options - it shows this layer has a clipping mask; when I release the mask - the image shows the word as a gradient surrounded by a black box - I have no idea how I did this - in your infinite wisdom - could you take a look at my file and see if you can tell what I did? Here's a link to download it: http://www.hosting456.com/smokin.ai

Thank you in advance

Heh, heh, you grossly overestimate my Auntie Illy abilities. Truth is, I avoid Illustrator as much as humanly possible. I mainly use Xara Designer Pro, even on work that eventually has to go into Illy for final touches and or to save out so I can give a client an Illustrator file.

That said, I *think* how you began the middle layer is by using an inner glow and at some point made it into an opacity mask.

In the screen shot my version is the bottom one and the middle layer has an inner glow but to make it work appearance-wise, but uses a different transparency blend mode.

Take care, Mike