Cutout Paper Text Effect Photoshop Tutorial

This text effect of cutout paper text is very easy, but a little time consuming. There is a fair bit of repetitive stuff required to complete this, depending on the amount of wording you want to use.

Resources:

Chelsea Market Font from 1001 Fonts

Wood Texture from 10ravens on DeviantArt

Embossed Paper Texture from Textures4Photoshop

Crease Texture from Seamless Pixels

Step 1

Create a new file 1200px x 795px.

Open the Wood Texture and resize it to 1200px wide – leave the automatic height as it is.

Drag the wood texture into your canvas, then using Ctrl + T, resize the height to fit the canvas and make the planks thinner.

Step 2

Add an adjustment layer by clicking on the round half-and-half icon at the bottom of the layers palette and selecting ‘Black & White’. Leave the default settings as they are.

Add a ‘Solid Color’ adjustment layer and set the colour to brown #745418. Set the blend mode to Color, and the opacity to 60%.

Now add a ‘Brightness/Contrast’ adjustment layer and set the Brightness to 40 and the contrast to -30.

Step 3

Using Chelsea Market font at size 250pt, white, type your text placing each letter on it’s own layer.

Using the Move tool and Ctrl + T, place the letters as you wish. Small adjustments on the rotation works better here.

Step 4

Select the top letter layer, and add the following Color Overlay and Drop Shadow settings. Don’t be alarmed, the Color Overlay settings will currently change nothing.

Right click on the layer you have just worked on and select ‘Copy Layer Style’, then click on the layer below it, hold down the Shift key and click on the bottom layer to select all other letter layers. Right click on any selected layer and click ‘Paste Layer Style’.

Step 5

Open the Embossed Paper texture and resize the image to 470px wide – this should make the height 273px.

Drag the texture into your file, make sure it is placed above the first letter layer – towards the bottom of the layers palette, and apply the following Color Overlay settings:

Step 6

Open the Creases texture and resize the image to 600px – this should make the height 600px also.

Drag the texture into your file, make sure it is placed above the embossed paper texture layer. Reduce the opacity to 40%.

Step 7

Now you have to create an embossed paper and creases layer for each layer, and place them above each letter layer.

You can do this however you find easiest – I’m sure there is an easier way than mine, but here is how I did it:

Turn off the visibility of both the paper and creases layers, select both layers, right click and select ‘Duplicate Layers’. Do not deselect the layers, but drag them above the next letter. With the layers still selected, duplicate them again and continue until all letters have the paper and creases layers above them.

Step 8

Now you need to go through each of the paper and creases layers and place them on their letters. The first thing to do, starting on the first letter, is to create a clipping mask. If you hold down the Alt button and hover between the paper and the letter layers in the layers palette, an arrow will appear. Click when you see the arrow to clip the paper layer to the letter layer. You may not see anything right now, so you will have to move the paper layer to cover the letter layer and place it in the position you like.

Now do the same thing with the creases layer, clip it to the paper layer and move it around until you have creases that look good on the letter.

Repeat this step for each letter.

Step 9

Now you need to group the layers for each word or line of your text. If you have more than one word on a line, you should group those words together.

Click on the top layer in the layers palette to activate it (should be a creases layer), then hold down the Shift key and click on the letter layer that makes the complete word/line (in my case it is the first P of PAPER) to select all the layers of that word/line.

Ctrl + G to group the layers. Name the group PAPER (in my case), or whatever you require.

Repeat this step for all other lines of lettering in your file.

Now you can move the words or lines of words around as you wish. I centred the words on my image.

And you’re done!

Conclusion

This tutorial is easy, but I realise it could be a little confusing, if you have any problems completing it, please don’t hesitate to contact me – I’m here to help!