Photoshop: Letterpress Effects

05/24/2011 in photoshop,tutorials

Letterpress Effects

I love letterpress. It looks beautiful and it just feels good — I love to run my fingertips over the indented impressions set on thick, luxurious paper.

There are many letterpress-inspired tutorials out there, but the ones I’ve seen simply apply inner shadows to the text. But, inner shadows are just one component of a letterpress look — there’s also the indented, pillowed-look to the paper when it’s been “pressed”. I address this in the tutorial by applying the bevel/emboss layer style to the paper texture, in addition to a few other things.

If you want to follow along, please check out the credits at the end of this post to download the same resources I used. Also, if you have another method for accomplishing the letterpressed look, please share the wealth. :)

Letterpress Effects: Before and After

I want to thank Allen Coté for contributing more beautiful music to this screencast. Please check out his Facebook Fan Page to learn more about him and to hear more of his music..

Thank You, Allen Cote

Best viewed in HD, fullscreen:

If you like this letterpress tutorial, please stay tuned for my “embossed” stationery tutorial.

♥ credits:
(screencast) vintage airmail envelope: fuzzimo
(screencast + post image) old book cover texture: fuzzimo
old sticky tape: fuzzimo
coffee stains: obsidian dawn
grunge brushes: we function
fonts: verner, prophecy, bm harry, pilgi
honeycomb pattern
stationery texture

{ 66 comments }  

1 Morgan Rapp 05/24/2011 at 6:54 pm

This is awesome! I am obsessed with letterpress! Thank you!

2 Mercy-Hazel Weagraff 05/24/2011 at 7:16 pm

I love letterpress!! Thank you for this tutorial, Katrina!!

3 notabilia 05/24/2011 at 7:17 pm

Forget <3-ing letterpress, I <3 Pugly Pixel and Katrina!

4 Kate 05/24/2011 at 7:46 pm

SO excited to watch this! I’m developing a line of e-invites and announcements and I can’t wait to add these skills to my repertoire! Thank you!!!

5 Lakshmi Sarkar 05/24/2011 at 8:33 pm

omg ..thank you !! I definitely will use this tutorial . I can’t wait to start adding it to my designs. Thanks for sharing . I love letterpress !

6 Jasmine 05/24/2011 at 8:45 pm

love it! I have been looking for an easy way of doing this for ever… great work. I would love to see an easy Illustrator tutorial on this as well.

7 Liz 05/24/2011 at 10:14 pm

I looooove doing this! Gorgeous tutorial, as always Katrina. Also that font is a dream; definitely purchasing soon :)

8 Dacia 05/24/2011 at 11:16 pm

i am definitely checking this out! thank you :)

9 Bekah 05/24/2011 at 11:20 pm

This was such a fantastic tutorial! I really can’t wait to give it a try. Yay, for letterpress!

10 Clare 05/24/2011 at 11:25 pm

That was a gorgeous, clever and beautiful demo. Not only do I adore letterpress and have been stretching my poor old brain trying to duplicate the effect for some web-work, but the experience was just made all the more pleasant by the sweet tunes while I learned everything I needed to know! THANKS GUYS. I mean really – thank you!!

11 Ruby 05/25/2011 at 2:11 am

I just love this!! Can’t wait to use it. :) Thanks so much for sharing. I’m really on the lookout for typography tricks right now.

12 melly 05/25/2011 at 2:46 am

Aha, now I know why my attempts to achieve the letterpress look failed. I missed the step to bevel the background. Brb, gonna try it on one of my projects now. Will share the result if my client approves of it :D Thanks, Katrina!

13 matrjoschki 05/25/2011 at 3:30 am

great tutorial…i love your blog!

14 Leanne 05/25/2011 at 4:47 am

oh my gosh i absolutely love this!!! thank you so much. can’t wait to have a go. xx

15 Donatella Madrigal 05/25/2011 at 6:50 am

This is a great tutorial! Thanks!
I will stay tuned for the stationery one…

16 Jenny 05/25/2011 at 6:53 am

I always adore your choice of fonts, colours and textures!

17 Tammy 05/25/2011 at 7:20 am

Very cool! Great little ditty playing the background.
Thanks for sharing!

18 Marianne 05/25/2011 at 8:32 am

I love letterpress. Thank you for sharing the tutorial. I really have to study it a bit more, before giving it a try.

19 Molly D 05/25/2011 at 8:36 am

Holy cow, thank you for this! As a letterpress artist myself this will be such a fun tool to use on blog :)

20 Crystal 05/25/2011 at 9:12 am

Oh My GOODNESS!!! I can’t wait to try this out. Thank you again for such an amazing tutorial. I have been using your Photo Layouts like crazy on my blog lately. I am so thankful you are sharing your wealth of knowledge. Hope you are having an inspired and sunshiny kind of day.
Much Love,
Crystal

21 kat 05/25/2011 at 9:40 am

AWESOOOOOOOOOOOOOMEEEE!!!

22 Liz 05/25/2011 at 9:43 am

You are an utter star – that’s a fabulous tutorial! Thank you x

23 Sharon | the teacup incident 05/25/2011 at 10:53 am

What a wonderful tutorial! I can’t wait to try it out. Love the music too :)

24 melina bee 05/25/2011 at 11:18 am

wow, that is so thoughtful and generous of you to be posting all these tutorials lately, I can’t wait til I have time to sit down and closely watch them all

25 Lisa (sideoats + scribbles) 05/25/2011 at 11:36 am

GAH!!! Can’t wait to try this — thanks so much, Katrina! Letterpress rocks, but you rock more! :)

26 Jenn 05/25/2011 at 1:16 pm

Woot I did it! Thanks so much !

27 lisa 05/25/2011 at 1:21 pm

do you have this in a pdf for screenshot tutorial as well??

28 Lynn 05/25/2011 at 3:41 pm

Katrina, i am SO doing this soon! what a blast and a most helpful guide to creating this wonderful graphic. thank you, your blog is such an ethically happy place! always links up to the resources, really rad. cheers!

29 Ez 05/25/2011 at 5:19 pm

Gasp! This is absolutely amazing! Wow! The finished results are incredible. I’m definitely going to have to try and learn this technique right away. Thank you so much for sharing your wisdom with us! xo Ez

30 milena 05/25/2011 at 5:53 pm

this is amazing! now i just gotta figure out how to change the preferences for the inner shadow layer style in elements 9 (im so new to photoshop!)

31 Hannah Busekrus 05/25/2011 at 5:56 pm

from one designer to another: thank you for your dedication to helping make the world more sweet to look at one tutorial at a time! i letterpress!

32 Maddy 05/25/2011 at 7:54 pm

This is amazing Katrina!! Can’t wait to try it out :) You’re the absolute BEST!

33 Joy 05/26/2011 at 12:15 am

Wonderful detailed tutorial. You are so flippin’ awesome.

34 creatissimo 05/26/2011 at 1:49 am

I loooove it, I looooove it, I looooove it! Thank you so much for this tutorial. And by the way, I love your blog and your style and all the great tips… :)

35 carolina 05/26/2011 at 7:35 am

love this tutorial. Thanks KAtrina!!!

36 Summer 05/26/2011 at 12:00 pm

Just finished working through the tutorial and it turned out GREAT! Thank you so much for taking the time to create and post this. The results are fantastic and the video was easy to watch and easy on the eyes! :)

37 Veronica 05/26/2011 at 1:36 pm

This is gobsmacking goodness! Thank you. You are one clever lady! And its super nice that you share and allow others to grow and learn new skills. Oodles of appreciation always.

38 rose 05/26/2011 at 1:49 pm

you are a fantastic teacher :) thanks for letting us share the letterpress love!

39 mon 05/26/2011 at 3:56 pm

AHHH! Can’t wait to try this! It looks awesome and the font you chose for is perfect! :)

40 rica 05/27/2011 at 12:42 am

what an awesome tutorial :)

41 Sage Parker 05/27/2011 at 11:25 am

I love this!!!!!
I am so bad at photoshop but I’m going to give it a try cause I want a fun letterpress look.
Thank you.

42 Lisa 05/28/2011 at 3:13 am

This tutorial is ace! Thanks so much for sharing! Your blog rocks! :)

43 maybemej 05/28/2011 at 7:27 am

Thank you for this great tutorial. I LOVE IT. I have already tried it out. =) Tudeluuuu.

44 Jenny 05/28/2011 at 9:55 pm

this is awesome. thanks!

45 Liesl 05/29/2011 at 6:40 pm

This is fantastic…thanks for sharing and I love the font!

Liesl :)

46 lou 05/30/2011 at 5:11 am

i love this tutorial. it’s so easy to understand. i’ve made a small blog post header and it turned out great. thank you so much for sharing. i’m sure i’ll use it more often. xo, L
http://happyserendipity.com/cooking-baking/soul-food/

47 Lindzie H 05/30/2011 at 9:38 am

Someone linked up on Pinterest. This is awesome. I only have Elements though…will it still work there? I’m still kind of learning how to use of

48 Lindzie H 05/30/2011 at 9:38 am

Whoops didn’t finish my thought. I’m still trying to learn how to use Elements but I love learning new techniques. Thanks for sharing!

49 Melanie 05/30/2011 at 11:40 am

Love it! I think I will use it just to decorate my office…or send cards to friends…or… :) Thank you for sharing!

50 Fabiana Mattos 05/30/2011 at 2:39 pm

Amazing tutorial! Thanks a lot!

51 tara 05/30/2011 at 8:48 pm

Thanks for the tutorial! I’m operating on PS5.1 so the settings are a little bit different, but pretty similar to yours.

One thing you may be able to assist with…I’m stuck on the We Function brush part. Do I have to download these brushes from the We Function web site?

52 tara 05/30/2011 at 9:03 pm

I created a new header on my blog w/ your instructions! Mine doesn’t look as ‘pressed’ as yours does, though. Do you think that’s because of my font choice or did I miss a step?

53 Sarina 05/30/2011 at 11:08 pm

Hi what a great tutorial! Can you please let me know what font was used? I love the ‘t’!

54 sooki 05/31/2011 at 10:39 pm

thank you thank you for this!!! you are da bomb. :)

55 keren 06/03/2011 at 11:23 am

My dear .. i cannot express how grateful I am for you and all your tutorials! Thank you for being a total Gem!

56 riyo 06/09/2011 at 11:41 pm

thank you! thank you!! i was searching for bits and pieces of things i want to learn for making my blog better and i found your blog…! great tips!!!! wonderful, i will come back again!!!
(i hope you don’t mind putting the link of this post to mine later.)

57 Glauce Lima 06/10/2011 at 1:38 pm

Amazinggggggggggggggggggg
Thank you

58 Steven 06/18/2011 at 8:29 am

Hi, this is one of the most awesome tutorials about vintage letterpress in PS i have come across so far. Thanks a million !

59 Heather 06/23/2011 at 11:49 pm

Thank you! I’m loving it, however I’m having a bit of trouble. When I’m about to Bevel & Layer the background, the lettering is not showing through white. It is only selected….I’m feeling like I’m loosing some of the letter pressed effect…any suggestions? Thanks!

60 Evelyn 06/29/2011 at 1:31 am

OMG I love it!! I just used it in my blog. It was just what i was looking for!!!!
1,000,000 thanx Katrina!!!!!!!!

61 Melinda 06/29/2011 at 4:11 pm

Do you have a text version of this for those of us without the bandwidth on our iPhones or crappy laptops?

Thanks!

62 Marwaberry 07/13/2011 at 4:55 pm

Thank you so much for everything, I not only love this tut, but all the other lovely stuff you offer and also the inspiration.

63 Kristin 07/15/2011 at 1:51 pm

Loving this tutorial! Thanks for taking the time to spell it all out.

64 Kathleen Desio 07/21/2011 at 7:05 pm

Thank you so much for this fantastic tutorial – you are a Godsend!!!

65 Sunshine 08/04/2011 at 6:00 am

What a fantastic tutorial!! Thank you so much. Can you please tell me what font you used? It is so beautiful! Thanks again! You have really sparked my creativity today. :)

66 Katrina 08/04/2011 at 8:36 am

@sunshine: i’m glad you liked it! Oh, and that font is called Verner from myfonts.

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