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Start a new file in Cinema4d. This is what your view should look like at this point. If it doesn’t, you can press F1 to return to perspective view:

Press F5 to divide the workspace to 4, 1 for main angle and other 3 for the top, right and front angle.

Now select your freehand spline tool:

Start creating a a shape as you want in the top window.

Create another shape while taking the top angle into consideration. See how we made the line lenght same as top:

Repeat it again at the front window, consider all angles:

Now go to nurbs tool, and select loft nurbs:

This is what the top right should look like:

Choose the splines and drag them under the loft nurbs

Your render should now take shape:

Now, the arrow is for selecting points, the second box is for moving things around, the third is for changing the size and the last one is for picking the angle. We’re going to use these tools to get a different view on the render:

Select any of the above tools, and move or modify your splines untill you get the right camera angle and perspective:

Now select your loft nurbs and press C to simplify it (with the simplify option you can edit all of the display proporties, the splines will be merged into a single group).

We will be modifying our render with the following Objects (refer to the image below):

Number 1: With this tool we can bend the render,

Number 2: Curve tool, add a curve to the render,

Number 3: Bulge tool,

Number 4: Shear tool,

Number 5: Explosion effect, this one can be a bit tricky and requires some experimenting. They’re pretty self explanatory, Make sure you play around with them.

First, we’re going to add a Bend object with the settings below (obviously, try using your own settings rather than copying ours):

Then we add a twist. Again do as you want, be creative!

We add a bulge:

Group your object by going to Object > Group Object or press Alt+G:

This is what your screen shuld look like:

Now select your null object. We’re going to copy (CTRL + C) and paste (CTRL + V) the entire object, and move it around. They will probably flow nicely into eachother.

Using the following tools we can move the copied render around:

Our cinema4d render outcome at this point:

Copy it again and now place it at left end of the window, flip it around and play around as you get something you like. Don’t worry if it doesn’t fit into your perspective, we can just change angles, sizes, zooms and so on.

We’re going to add 3 hyper nurbs, and by using Drag and Drop we will place our null objects inside of them. Here is what it looks like at the moment. Pay attention to the top right section of the screenshot, this is what it should look like if you’ve done the previous step correctly:

Shown on a black background renderred quickly:

Modify the left part of the render, (play with the settings of Bend / Curve / Bulge):

Now select all the hyper nurb object and group them (Alt+G):

Duplicate it twice and move these around, flip them, resize them, move them around untill you get something you like

Expand the render( open up the hyper nurbs and null objects) and modify the settings and places of your bend / curve / bulge in the bottom right corner:

renderred quickly on a black background:

Now we are going to add some perspective, use the perspective and move tool to get into an angle that you like:

The following step will add some depth into your render. Left click zoom in tool, and drag it to left while holding it:

This should change the depth in your view:

Renderred on a black background:

Play with perspective / angles a bit more

Our render is now ready, time to get started on material

Add a lumas to your material at color section and we modified it with these settings, you can do as you want.

Check reflection and drag it back to 17%

Modify the specular

Add displacement

This is how it looks like with the material right now (and some lighting added which we will explain in the following step):

Select lighting on your toolbar, and add Light. Don’t be afraid to add many different light locations. Check the top right area in this screenshot:

Now, modify the settings in the bottom right. Simply change the color settings, the type, brightness, and so forth. Use your own settings, try not to just copy ours:

We’re going to render our final image. Use your preferred settings. In case you don’t know how, select Render > Render Settings:

To get a transparant background, you can save them as a Quicktime PNG and make sure you check the Alpha Channel checkbox!

The higher you set the Antialising, the longer the renderring will take:

Add several effects if you like:

Set your preferred size, we’ve set it to a generic 1280 x 1024 wallpaper:

Now select Render > Render to Picture Viewer ( CTRL + R), and if you’re satisfied (This step could take a while depending on the power of your computer), Save the image (File > Save As…) and you’re done!

We hope you’ve enjoyed this tutorial, Premium Members can download the Cinema4d file in the Premium Member section along with extra tutorials, materials, PSD files and more!

• Creating and enhancing the Explosion
• Adding Lighting into the canvas
• Fixing / Removing errors or bad looking sections

We will start with a Resistance 2 wallpaper found on Gamewallpapers. I’ve added a few animated .GIF files to illustrate some steps.

Please do not copy or redistribute this tutorial whatsoever.

The outcome of this tutorial:

This is the wallpaper (resized to 65%) that we will be starting with. Notice how this wallpaper already has a bright light source:

Creating and enhancing an explosion:

1. First, select your brush tool, and grab a soft brush. We’re going to use the orange color #F67228 to create the base of the explosion.

2. Start brushing all around the area where you would like the explosion to happen. This looks best when it’s around a bright light source. Don’t worry if you brush over any of the characters on the foreground or other details, we will repair this later.

3. Create a new Layer. Grab a lighter orange color, we used #FFC06E, to brush inside of the base explosion we’ve created in step 2. Make sure you brushing makes sense, brush outwards into the direction of the explosion.

4. Create another new layer. Now use a white brush with a smaller size to brush near the core of your explosion. Once again, brush outwards out of the explosion:

5. create a new layer, grab a darker color orange, and brush a little at the end of the flames. The color we’ve used was #DE5B1F”

6. We’re going to blend these flames into eachother using the smudge tool and a chalk brush. I’ve used the default Photoshop brush set, so you should normallyhave these Chalk brushes. Select the Smudge Tool:

Then click onto the brushes, and select a Chalk Brush (or atleast I believe it’s a chalk brush):

7. Create a new layer, and Apply the image (Image > Apply Image). Now, start smudging the canvas to create an exploding effect. Try using the directions of an explosion like I’ve done:

Our result of the smudging (don’t worry if you still see all of the brushing at this point, we’re going to fix this in the following steps):

8. Now grab the Clone Stamp Tool,

and hold ALT to define a source point. Select a point in the center if your lightsource with some detail:

9. Now start tapping a few times on top of the flames. Define a new source point every so often to create some different detail:

The outcome of our clone stamp tooling at this point:

10. Grab the Smudge tool again with the same Chalk brush, and start smudging into the flames:

our outcome:

11. Now, make a new layer, and apply the image (Image > Apply Image). Set this layers blending mode to Multiply, and reduce the opacity to reduce its strength slightly. We’ve set it to 54%:

Outcome of setting the layer to multiply:

12. We’re going to use Layer Masks to only show a small section of the Multiply layer (If you want a more detailed explanation on layer masks, check out this tutorial). While you have the multiply layer selected, go to Layer > Layer Mask > and select Hide All.

13. Click on th elayer mask in your layer panel, and use a white brush to brush slightly into the explosion. This will reveal the layer we’ve just hidden:

Shown below is the selection of the parts where we’ve brushed to enhance the explosions color:

14. We’re going to fix the section inside the explosion which looks kind of odd at this point. Smudging this a little will fix this. Here’s an animation to illustrate what we’ve changed:

15. Time to fix the characters on the foreground that we’ve brushed over. Duplicate the original image ( Right Click > Duplicate Layer) and move this on top:

16. Now create another layer mask like we did in step 12, and hide everything. Then with a small white brush, brush into the section that you would like to repair. Below is an image showing the selection of the area that we fixed:

Result of the characters on the foreground fixed:

Adding Lighting

17. We will be adding extra lighting to enhance the realistic feel. Zoom in, and grab a small white brush. Brush slightly across the edges of our characters where lighting would seem logical:

18. Now set this layers blending mode to Soft Light or Overlay depending on how strong you want the lighting to be. Reduce the opacity a little if it looks too strong. We’ve kept the opacity at 100% and used blending mode Overlay:

19. We’re going to blur the outlines of the explosion. Create a new layer, and apply the image (Image > Apply Image) and go to Filter > Blur > Motion Blur, and set the angle to 0. Set the distance to about 15 to 25. Our settings:

Result of this motion blur:

20. Now add a layer mask (Layer > Layer Mask > Hide All), and brush a little around the edges of our flames to unhide some of the blurred parts.

The result of our motion blur layer:

21. Grab a large brush, and brush with a dark color around our focal point. This is to add some extra lighting around the explosion:

22. Set this layers Opacity to about 30%, our result after fixing the lighting:

Fixing / Removing details

We’re going to remove the character near the explosion, because it just doesn’t make sense for him to be there. Here’s an animation to illustrate what we’re going to do be doing in the following steps:

23. Zoom into the canvas, and hold alt to define a point. Then, start brushing over the character:

Keep brushing and defining new areas to brush trough.

After removing the character from the canvas, it looks kind of odd.

24. Brush a little on top of the fire and in the air, and smudge it slightly to fix the background:

Finnishing Touches

25. We’re going to add the final finnishing touches. Brush over areas with a soft white brush, and set its blending mode to Overlay. You can reduce the opacity a little if it appears too strong.

The result after changing the blending mode an opacity:

26. Apply the image on a new layer, and sharpen either with the sharpen tool, or Filter > Sharpen > Sharpen. This gives us our final result:

We hope you’ve enjoyed this tutorial. Premium members will be able to download the PSD of this file and the stock in the premium member section. Enjoy!

About the author: thanks a lot to Michael over at sp-renders for providing the original tutorial, we will be updating this site with several more tutorials originally written by Michaël, sliced out and optimized by Base from SignatureStop. One note about the images, for everyones viewing pleasure, the images have been saved as .gif files. This will distort the quality somewhat, however will have this tutorial load up much faster for everyone.

Right, lets start creating the wallpaper shall we. In this tutorial we will be making this (tiny) wallpaper:

1. Right, start with a new file. Like I said in the introduction, if you want to make a wallpaper, pick your size. For the purpose of this tutorial we picked 400 by 400.

2. Grab your Paint Bucket Tool, and fill this background with a lightish black color, we picked #0F0F0F.

3. We have to find a nice Cinema4D render. You can find plenty of free and good looking renders at our resources section. Paste the render on your image, and change its blending mode to screen. Move it into a good position:

You can set the blending mode to screen by going to your Layer pallette and selecting Screen from the dropdown menu.

4. To enhance the colors and effect, duplicate the layer (either by pressing CTRL + J, or by going to Layer > Duplicate Layer…). Remember the blending mode has to be set on screen.

5. Duplicate the layer again, and move it around to fill your canvas a bit more. Remove parts that you don’t like with your eraser until what you see looks good.

6. Duplicate this layer again to enhance the colors and effect. Do not move this layer.

7. Grab another bubbly Cinema4D render and put it into place. You can use different colors, however you should try to keep the general color scheme somewhat the same. Change its blending mode to screen again.

8. We’re going to repeat the previous steps a few times, untill you get a nice and colorful canvas. Remember to set the layer to screen, duplicate it to enhance the colors and effects, and move and erase it around until you are satisfied.

our canvas after duplicating the effect a few times:

9. We’re now going to smudge our background into a good looking canvas. Make a new layer, and go to Image > Apply Image. This will combine all of our previous layers onto one new layer. Pick your smudging tool, and grab a soft rounded brush (around 30 pixels in size). We have to set a specific smudge setting to our brush. we can do this by clicking on the Brush Preset button found in the top right corner of your toolbar:

The smudge tool:

Brush settings:

10. Smudging can be a little difficult at first. To make your canvas look good, try making circular movements. Do not overdo this effect, and do not rush this. If you rush the smudging, your canvas will look a bit messy and will not look to good.

11. Now we have to find a sprite (or render) for our wallpaper. The best sprites for these colourfull wallpapers are the ones that have some sort of action into it. Like the one we picked, he’s performing some sort of kick or jump, whatever he’s trying to do, it’s as if he’s moving. We can enhance this effect later for a good looking result.

Paste your sprite onto a new layer, close to the middle or wherever you want your focal point to be.

12. We’re going to smudge some more. Make a new layer, Image > Apply Image… and start smudging with your smudge tool. Erase smudging that overlaps your sprite with the eraser tool for now, we’re going to blend in our sprite in a later step.

13. While smudging, try creating a good looking focal point, and maintain the lighting in that spot. We’ve picked the spot just above our sprite:

14. Add in another bubbly Cinema4D render, and set its blending mode to screen. Move this into position near the focal. If you place it below, you will get too many focals and people will not know where to look at initially.

15. Take out your eraser tool, and reduce the opacity to about 40%. We’re going to blend our character into our background by erasing parts of the sprite. Lower the opacity of the eraser if you’re erasing too much of your render at once.

16. Grab your smudge tool out, and smudge a bit of your Cinema4D bubbles. Keep smudging untill your background starts to look good. Erase any unwanted parts, and smudge some more.

Our result after smudging some more, this image is saved in a bit higher quality t osee what ours looks like now:

17. Make a new layer, and once again go to Image > Apply Image… we’re going to apply a sharpen effect. Go to Filter > Sharpen > Sharpen, and repeat this several times untill you get an oversharpenned layer.

18. Set this layers blending mode to Lighten, and reduce the opacity to about 25%.

19. We’re going to add some lighting onto our sprite. Create a new layer, and take out your Brush tool. Select a soft round brush, and set your foreground color to a random color that matches your color scheme (use your eyedropper tool to select a lightish color).

Softly tap your brush around your sprite, and set the layers blending mode to Linear Dodge. In the box next to it you can see what it looks like when set to normal to get an idea of how to tap around your sprite.

20. Apply the image on a new layer (Image > Apply Image…). Get the sharpen tool, and use a soft rounded brush to sharpen the sprite up a bit. Reduce the opacity of this applied layer afterwards to about 30 to 40%, to have it fade in better with the rest of your image.

sharpening tool:

sharpened sprite with reduced opacity:

21. We’re going to smudge our background some more, apply the image on a new layer and smudge the background a bit. avoid smudging around our sprite for now, focus on the background.

22. We can start adding some hints of lighting and detail now. Simply create a new layer and select your brush tool. Load a soft round brush and set your foreground color to a light color in your canvas. You can use your eyedropper tool to get a nice color. Softly tap your brush in places where you would like to add some detail. Change the blending mode to overlay afterwards, and reduce the opacity between 20 to 30%

23. Apply the image on a new layer (Image > Apply Image…). Go to Filter > Render > Lighting Effects, and play aroudn a bit with the settings until you’re pleased and then hit ok. We’ve used these settings:

Erase spots that came on too strong with your eraser tool.

24. We’re going to add Gradient Maps. These are adjustment layers that can color your canvas. You can either create these by going to Layer > New Adjustment Layer > Gradient Map, or selecting the black/white circle on your layer palette:

Set this layers blending mode to screen, and reduce its opacity to about 45 to 55%:

25. We’re going to add another gradient map. Once again select your blue/white circle, or go to Layer > New Adjustment Layer > Gradient map, and select this gradient:

Set the layers blending mode to Multiply, and reduce the opacity to 50%

26. We’re going to smudge the background some more, however we need to make sure we follow our lighting and flow. Apply the image on a new layer (Image > Apply Image…) and grab your smudge tool:

27. Apply the image on a new layer, and go to Filter > Blur > Gaussian Blur, and use about 2.5 radius to blur this.

28. Set the blurred layers blending mode to screen, and reduce the opacity to 50%. Set the fill of the layer to 80%

result of the blending mode change:

29. Duplicate this layer, and change its blending mode to soft light. This time however, set the opacity to 20% and leave the fill at 80%:

30. We have to add some more brushing around our sprite. Grab your brush, and on a new layer, use a soft color to tap on your image. Change the blending mode to color dodge to have it blend in.

31. We’re going to add two more adjustment layers. First, a color balance layer. Only the midtones were changed. Go to Layer > New Adjustment Layer > Color Balance…, and select these settings:

Leave the blending mode and opacity as they are unless it looks really bad, however try not to reduce the opacity too much.

31. Add a curves layer, Layer > New Adjustment Layer > Curves…, and toy around with the settings until you’re pleased with the adjustment layer.

Don’t change this adjustment layers blending mode or opacity either.

32. Apply the image on a new layer, and go to Image > Adjustments > Hue/Saturation… or simply press CTRL + U to open up the adjustment window. Lower the lightness a little to make it look a bit darker.

33. We have to add a little more detail into the background, add in a Cinema4D render and set its blending mode to screen. Move it somewhere nice where it follows the flow of your coloring, and possibly interacts with your sprite (like the kick of our sprite in this piece). If needed, erase parts that cover the sprite.

34. Apply the image on a new layer, and grab your smudge tool. Use the same brush settings we used before, and smudge some of your piece again. We smudged some of our newly added Cinema4D render.

35. Duplicate this layer, and set its blending mode to lighten to brighten it up.

36. Enhance some of the lighting that we’ve created in our wallpaper. Create a new layer, grab your brush tool and select a soft rounded brush. Set your foreground color to a pinkish color, and brush over our lighting and change the blending mode to screen:

37. Add in another gradient map, either by selection the black/white circle on our layer palette, or by going to Layer > New Adjustment Layer > Gradient Map… and select the black to white gradient.

38. Change the blending mode to multiply, and lower the opacity to 15 to 20%.

39. We’re going to lighten up our focus a bit. Create a new layer, and load your brush tool. Select a soft rounded brush and set your foreground color to a nice pinkish coor. Brush over your sprite, and then change the layers blending mode to lighten. Lower its opacity to 10%.

40. In this step we’re going to add some more detail. Make a new layer, and go to Image > Apply Image. Set this new layer to Dissolve. Lower the opacity to 1 or 2%, and you’ll have your canvas filled with spreckles. Move them around, and erase parts that you dont like. Create some detail around your spreite.

41. Because our sprite got blended in a bit too much, we’re going to load our sprite again. Duplicate your sprite and place it on top of your layers. Press CTRL + U (or Image > Adjustments > Hue/Saturation…) reduce the lightness to -100, all the way black.

Set this layer to soft light, and lower the opacity to 20%. This will make our layer stand out a bit more, yet keep it blended in.

42. We’re going to finnish our canvas up with a levels layer. Go to Image > New Adjustment Layer > Levels… and play around with the settings untill you get a nice looking result.

Final result of our tutorial:

We hope that you’ve enjoyed this tutorial. Feel free to post question, comments and suggestions into our comments. Once again, thanks a lot to Michaël over at sp-renders for his great work!

1. First, open up Cinema4D. You’ll see the standard screen. To get a better view of our area, hit F5 to view 4 different camera angles:

2. Now, select the Freehand Spline tool, and randomly create some lines in different camera angle windows. My result after using the freeform spline tool (note the objects window on the right that says Spline 3 times, which means that I’ve made 3 different splines):

3. Now create a Loft nurb, and drag all 3 spines into the loft nurb by selecting the spines and dragging them under the loft nurb in the objects window. See screenshot below:

4. If you’re not happy with its current angle, click on the rotate tool in the toolbar above like shown in the screenshot, and twist and turn until you’re satisfied. My result after turning it around:

The rotate tool:

After rotating my render:

5. Now you have to add a material. This is a very important step, good materials will make this piece look good. You can find some great materials in our Miscellaneous Resources section. In this case, I added BaceMaterial 1. You can leave its settings the way I made it, or you can modify it the way you like.

To load a material, press CTRL + SHIFT + O. Drag and drop the material onto the loft Nurbs like shown in the picture. Your render should change color when you add the material like shown in the picture:

6. Create a Twist object, and change its angle in the bottom right color like shown in the picture. Try to get a view that you like. Remember to change camera angles too if you need a better view. Drag and drop the twist object under your Loft NURBS. My result:

Drag this underneath the Loft NURBS

Change the Twist Objects angle in the bottom right corner:

7. Select your Loft NURB, and copy + paste it. (CTRL C + CTRL V). Rotate this layer by pressing the rotate button, and move it around a bit by pressing the Move button in the toolbar. Drag one of the arrows. Place these renders the way you like them. My result:

8. You can apply a bend or twist again if your copied Loft NURB looks too much like the other one. Remember to turn and twist it around. Try to create some flow, which I failed to do in this piece:

9. Keep moving it around until you see what you like. Now add a few light sources if you like, play around with the light areas. I placed some underneath my piece. You can hit F5 again to get a better view of the light sources:

After pressing F5 to view different perspective (Stars shown are light sources)

10. Render the image, and you’re done! Optionally, you can add some more random splines into your piece to create some more items. My result (image downsized, original size is a lot bigger. You can find this one in our resources section very soon):

Here’s my model before renderring:

Result Downsized with different lighting settings:

If you would like to have a transparant background behind your Cinema4D piece, you have to change the render settings. We will post a tutorial on how to do this very soon, so be sure to come back soon!

I’m going to start with this wallpaper from gamewallpapers.com:

Creating Depth with Layer Masks:

The most common and easy way to create depth is by blurring. There’s several ways you can do this. If for example we would like to focus on our main character in this wallpaper, these techniques can be used:

1. Layer Masks. Duplicate your wallpaper, and go to “Layer > Layer Mask > Reveal All…”. This will create a white image next to your layer on the layer window:

adding the layer mask:

the layer mask shown at our layer window:

2. Now we have to select our actual wallpaper instead of the layer mask, and blur this layer. To do this, click on your wallpaper in the layer window, and go to Filter > Blur… Now there’s several blur options we can try. For this example, I’m going to use Gaussian Blur. The reason for this is because its the easiest effect to work with and makes the most sense for our wallpaper. Set your Gaussian Blur between 1.5 and 3 pixels depending on your wallpaper:

Filter > Blur > Gaussian Blur… and pick your settings:

My result after blurring:

3. Now we have to mask the background, but have our character stand out in the foreground. Select the layer mask in your layer window, and pick your brush. You will see that your brush will automaticly take on two colors, black and white. If you brush black on the layer mask, the layer will dissapear where you’ve brushed. For example, I will make a straight line in the middle:

After brushing 2 black lines randomly onto the canvas:

You can see our blurred layer dissapear. We’re going to use this technique to show our character, but blur the background. If you’ve experimented with the layer mask, undo your moves, or otherwise select all and fill it with white.

4. Grab your brush, and select a hard round brush. With a black color, brush on top of your character

Now remember, if you miss your characters outline and go over it, don’t worry about it. Just continue brushing. This is the advantage of using a layer mask over erasing, when you’re done you can simple grab a white brush and show parts that you’ve missed!

5. As you can see, I now have the main outline of our character. However, this looks a bit sketchy and needs fixing. Zoom into areas where you’ve made mistakes, and brush with a white color:

After brushing with a white brush:

Some brushing tips to improve your result:

• When you’re brushing, make sure you don’t keep your mousebutton held in for too long. If you go over large areas without releasing your mouse button every so often and you make a mistake, you cannot undo your action (CTRL + Z) because the entire area you just brushed will be reset. Try releasing your mouse button now and then so you can reset every action or mistake you make.
• Don’t worry if you’re not very accurate, most people won’t notice if you blur the edges a bit.
• You can change the opacity of your brushing in the toolbar window on top if you’re having trouble with hair or other edges.
• You can copy/paste your layer mask to see your brushing. To do this, simply press CTRL + A to select all, CTRL + C to copy, and CTRL + V to paste.

My layer mask pasted onto a new layer before fixing. This is a good method to check spots that you’ve skipped or missed:

My result after fixing the edges:

Now as you can see, we created a focal point into our image by adding depth to the background. However we’re not done yet, we can add some more effects to it. Another method to add depth is to add different lighting:

Adding Lighting to create depth:

The best way to add depth with lighting onto your image is by using adjustment layers. The easiest way would be a Levels layer. Another advantage of using layer masks is that we can reuse it with our adjustment layer!

Possible result by using a levels layer:

6. First, create a levels adjustment layer. You can do this by going to Layer > New Adjustment Layer > Levels… (or pressing the black and white circle on your layer window and selecting Levels). You will see another layer mask on the layer window next to the levels. We’re going to copy the one we used for the blurring on this new layer mask. Here’s how it goes:

When you’ve made a new levels layer, you will see this window appear. If you play around with its settings, the colors will change. I found that the best method to darken while maintaining color is to use the grey handle and move it to the right:

You will see your entire canvas darken or lighten depending on the levels you’ve changed. Select the layer mask in your layer window. You can now either brush over the parts that you want to remain in the previous lighting, or you can copy/paste the layer mask we used with the bluring. CTRL + Click on the layer mask, press CTRL + SHIFT + I (or Selection > Inverse Selection…) and fill this with black:

Inverse the selection, and fill this section with black on your layer mask:

our result:

Combining Lighting and Blurring

These are just a few out of many techniques you can use to add depth. You can experiment by combining the previous two steps, adding the blurring and lighting together. Also try out different types of blurring, like Lens Blur, Motion Blur, Smart Blur, Radial Blur, Smart Blur, or many other filters. I added the two effects together into this image:

As you can see, we’ve really put this character into the spotlight! I hope you’ve enjoyed this tutorial. Feel free to comment or make any suggestions.

First, write your text on your canvas with a random font. The font I used was Fontin, which can be found in the resources section.

If you have your text tool selected (Press T), you will see the Character and Paragraphs Panel toggle button appear on your toolbar:

The following panel should appear:

I will explain the options in the panel that you can use to create effective text modifications. Please refer to this image:

1. This one is kind of obvious, it sets the character size.
2. This sets the line height of your text. The larger your font size, the higher the line height has to be. If for example we set our size to 20 and line height 18, the text will appear just fine.

However, if we change our text size back to 36 without changing the line height, the text will become cluttered:

You can create nice text effects with the line height effect without having the hassle of creating tons of text layers. You can add inner strokes that complement eachother for example:

3. Kerning. With this method you can change the kerning between selected characters. In the following image I changed the kerning between every letter next to both of the capital S’s in the bottom text line:

4. You can change the character tracking with this setting. This is my favourite character option, if you toy around with this setting, you can almost make it look like an entirely new font and make the letters connect to eachother like I’ve done in the following image:

The next 4 options in the character panel:

5. Vertically scale your text. Most of the time, this will not really look good on fonts if you change it, because the designer made it in a fixed size. If you find a font where it works however, you can create an original effect. Vertically styled:

6. Horizontally scale your text. Pretty much the same as vertically, looks weird and messy:

7. Setting a characters baseline shift. Changing this will put your text higher or lower:

8. text color, should be pretty obvious, you can change a single characters color if you highlight it, or its entire color if you only select the text layer.

With all these methods combined, you can create good looking text with just a single layer. You won’t have the hassle of selecting individual layers if you want to move all of your text to a different section. The only downside to using just one layer, is that you cannot use different layer styles. Oh well. This is what I came up with after some experimenting (remember, this is just a single text layer):