Bringing Typography to Life with Effects and Styling

Effects can be used to add a simple drop shadow or stroke outline to make types stand out against a busy background. They can also be combined and even stacked together to create stunning designs such as molten lava or blocks of ice, all of which can be edited and saved for later use in other documents. In this chapter, you will explore a variety of effects and workflows that can bring your designs to life.

We will start by slicing editable types in half with Smart Objects and layer masks. After, we will create a classic paper emboss effect using a single layer group and stacked layer styles that transform the look of any layer added to it.

The most challenging exercise of this chapter will involve creating a faux 3D effect, where the editable type will be distorted to create paper cut-out letters and folds while we keep the type layers editable.

In the second half of this chapter, we will focus on painterly effects, starting...