Photoshop Text Effects: Wrapping Text in 3D
Adobe Photoshop Text Effects Tutorials at Photoshop Essentials.com
Written By Steve Patterson
In this Photoshop Text Effects tutorial, we're going to learn how to easily wrap text around a 3D object in Photoshop, without the need for any 3D software. We're going to be wrapping our text around a planet, but you can use this same basic technique to wrap text around just about anything. You'll need Photoshop CS or higher for this tutorial, since we'll be using Photoshop's "text on a path" feature, and then we'll be using Free Transform to reshape our text into a 3D perspective. Finally, we'll be using a layer mask to hide the text where it passes behind the object, giving us our final 3D effect.
Here's the image of the planet (good old Planet Earth) I'll be wrapping the text around:
And here's what the image will look like after wrapping our 3D text around it:
Let's get started.
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Step 1: Select The Elliptical Marquee Tool
The first thing I need to do for this effect is to drag out a circular selection around the planet, and for that, I'll use the tool that Photoshop includes for just such a task, the Elliptical Marquee Tool. Select it from the Tools palette. By default, it's hiding behind the Rectangular Marquee Tool, so you'll need to click on the Rectangular Marquee Tool and hold your mouse down for a second or two until the small fly out menu appears, and then select the Elliptical Marquee Tool from the list:
Step 2: Drag A Selection Around The Object, A Bit Larger Than The Object Itself
With my Elliptical Marquee Tool selected, I'm going to position my mouse as close to the center of the planet as possible to start with. Then I'm going to hold down my Shift key to constrain my selection to a perfect circle and I'm going to hold down my Alt (Win) / Option (Mac) key to tell Photoshop to use the point I'm about to click on as the center of my selection, so the selection extends out in all directions from that point. Then I'm simply going to click in the center of the planet and drag out a selection until my selection is a bit larger than the planet, giving my text room to wrap around it.
Chances are, the spot where I initially clicked my mouse was not the dead center of the planet, which means my selection will need to be repositioned. To move the selection around on the screen and reposition it as I'm dragging it out, I'll hold down my spacebar, which allows me to move the selection around wherever I want it, and then I'll release the spacebar to continue dragging the selection larger.
Continue dragging and repositioning the selection until it's properly aligned with the object and a bit larger than the object itself:
Step 3: Convert The Selection Into A Path
We now have our selection around the object, and we're going to use it to add our text to the image, using Photoshop's "text on a path" feature. Problem is, our selection is a selection, not a path. Fortunately, Photoshop makes it easy to convert any selection into a path. To do that, switch over to your Paths palette, which you'll find grouped in by default with the Layers and Channels palettes. The Paths palette will appear empty, since we currently don't have any paths in our document. To convert the selection into a path, click on the Make Work Path From Selection icon at the bottom of the Paths palette (it's the third icon from the right):
As soon as you click on the icon, Photoshop converts the selection into a path, and the new "Work Path" appears in the Paths palette:
And if we look back in our image, we can see that the dotted lines of our selection have been replaced with a thin solid line, which is our path:
We can now use this path, along with the "text on a path" feature in Photoshop CS and higher, to add our text, which we'll do next.
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