February is known for its lack of days when we have a leap year but there is no lack in great Photoshop material! This month we have tutorials on creating a breathtaking fantasy scene, an amazing set of icons and wallpapers, and the usual inspirational articles. So lets get into it!

Colorful Lighting Effect In Illustrator

There are a number of amazing tutorials out there that teach you how to create some really awesome futuristic light wispy effects. I’ve always found this type of design very interesting, but everything you see is almost completely created in Photoshop. I recently had a project where I wanted this effect, but had to use only vector graphics.

The following is the technique I used to get that nifty effect using Illustrator.
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Grunge-Style Abstract Typography with Rusted Metal Texture in Photo shop

In this tutorial, I will show you the steps I took to make a Grungy-Style Abstract Typography using rusted metal texture in Photoshop. The inspiration of this tutorial came from a grungy metal image I came across on stockvault.net and thought I could have a play with it

Together we will explore some layer blending techniques, variuos filter effects, and an interesting method of making the text look 3D. Have a go!

Rotate the canvas by 90 degree CW by going into Image > Rotate Canvas > 90 degrees CW

We can add a bit of noise on the background image and make it look more grungy. To do this, duplicate the background layer and go to Filter > Noise > Dust & Scratches

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Stunning 3D effects with Text

create this cool effect in just 30 minutes.

Ingredients:
1 normal, everyday Photoshop
1 set of real 3D text.
1 large black canvas (1600×1200px)

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Bubble Text

Before getting started, you may want to find a suitable font for this effect, as not all fonts will necessarily look right when this style is applied. You want a font with rounded edges — no sharp corners.

This effect really works great on top of dark backgrounds, but will also work fine on lighter backgrounds (so long as it’s not too light, as the effect itself makes things brighter). Go ahead and create a new document, and fill in the background with a color of your choice (or #2d3134 if you’d like to borrow our background color).

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How To Use Type on Paths and Shapes in Photoshop

You’re probably familiar with the Shape, Type and Pen tools by now. If not, that’s OK. We’ll have quick refreshers for you along the way in this tutorial.

This Tutorial will Teach You how to create type that follows a custom path, or fills a custom shape in Photoshop. We’ll start with paths, and move our way up to filling and typing along shapes.

Type on a path works very similar to your typical type tool in Photoshop. Once you get a handle on how to work with it, it’s very easy.

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Abstract coloring

First, create a new document (800×600 px).

Take an image, import it to Adobe Photoshop, scale it down and cut the kid using the Lasso Tool or Quick Selection Tool.

Duplicate the layer and change the blending mode of the top layer to Overlay.

Take a textured image, import in to Adobe Photoshop and flip it vertical. Put this layer behind the other two layers.

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Coloring Hair in Photoshop

To create a character, hair is always a difficult part to make. This tutorial is going to describe how to make a few different hair styles. And you will learn how to adjust the hair color, skill for adding shine to hair. Just practice more!

Be forewarned, as always, that my style is not meant to be completely realistic and that I *do* use the Dodge/Burn tools quite liberally with hair. If that’s not a style you like, then this tutorial may not be all that helpful for you.

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