How to Make Glitter Text in Photoshop
Have you ever wondered how to make glitter text in Photoshop? Creating glitter text is surprisingly easy – it only takes one click to turn plain, boring text into something magical and sparkly!
Welcome to the first episode of ‘P.S Quick Tips‘, my brand new video series for learning how to use Photoshop. Every Tuesday and Thursday I’ll be releasing a new video that teaches you how to do a particular task in Photoshop.
Each video will be kept short-and-snappy – usually under 10 minutes. To make sure you never miss an episode, subscribe to my YouTube channel to be notified when each video goes live.
P.S. Quick Tips Episode #001
Creating Glitter Text in Photoshop
How to make gold glitter text in Photoshop CC 2019
Follow the instructions below to discover how to make glitter text in Photoshop.
I recorded this video in Photoshop Creative Cloud 2019, version 20.0.1.
Step 1: Create your text
First, create a new file and size it to whatever size you need.
Select the ‘ Text Tool’ and write a word onto your file. For this example, I chose the word “GLITTER”.
Choose an appropriate font that’s got fairly bold lines so that the glitter will show up effectively.
I chose ‘Lato‘ which is free to download, and then I selected the ‘Black’ font weight to make my letters as wide as possible. I wrote the word in capital letters as again this makes them larger, so the glitter effect will be more obvious.
Step 2: Prepare your glitter photograph
Download the gold glitter photograph from Pixabay (it’s free) and open it in Photoshop.
Click “Select” > “All” from the top menu, or press “Ctrl + A” on your keyboard.
Copy the glitter photo by clicking “Edit” > “Copy” from the top menu, or “Ctrl + C” on your keyboard.
Step 3: Place your glitter photo onto your document
Go back to your main document by clicking the tab near the top of the screen (in the image above, it’s the tab that says “Untitled-1”).
Paste the glitter image by clicking “Edit” > “Paste” in the top menu, or by pressing “Ctrl + V” on your keyboard.
You need the glitter photo to appear ABOVE your text in the Layers Palette – just like on the screenshot below.
If your text appears BELOW the text (i.e. you can see the text on top of the glitter), you’ll need to move the glitter layer to above the text by clicking and dragging it in the Layers Palette.
Top Tip – Don’t see the Layers Palette? Click “Window” > “Layers” in the top menu to make it appear.
Step 4: Place the glitter text inside the text using clipping masks
We need to make the glitter photo appear inside the text.
To do this, right click on the glitter layer in the Layers Palette and then select “Create Clipping Mask”.
The clipping mask will place the glitter photo inside your text like this:
Step 5: Final touches
With the glitter layer selected, you can use the ‘Move Tool’ to move the position of the glitter, and also resize it so that it fits better.
I usually find that smaller glitter particles look more realistic and give an even more “glittery” look to the text.
So there you have it – how to apply clipping masks in Photoshop to make glitter text.
I hope that you enjoyed this first episode of P.S Quick Tips. To make sure you never miss an episode, please subscribe to my YouTube channel.
