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. :)
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..
Best viewed in HD, fullscreen:
If you like this letterpress tutorial, please stay tuned for my “embossed” stationery tutorial.
(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 }
This is awesome! I am obsessed with letterpress! Thank you!
I love letterpress!! Thank you for this tutorial, Katrina!!
Forget <3-ing letterpress, I <3 Pugly Pixel and Katrina!
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!!!
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 !
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.
I looooove doing this! Gorgeous tutorial, as always Katrina. Also that font is a dream; definitely purchasing soon :)
i am definitely checking this out! thank you :)
This was such a fantastic tutorial! I really can’t wait to give it a try. Yay, for letterpress!
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!!
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.
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!
great tutorial…i love your blog!
oh my gosh i absolutely love this!!! thank you so much. can’t wait to have a go. xx
This is a great tutorial! Thanks!
I will stay tuned for the stationery one…
I always adore your choice of fonts, colours and textures!
Very cool! Great little ditty playing the background.
Thanks for sharing!
I love letterpress. Thank you for sharing the tutorial. I really have to study it a bit more, before giving it a try.
Holy cow, thank you for this! As a letterpress artist myself this will be such a fun tool to use on blog :)
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
AWESOOOOOOOOOOOOOMEEEE!!!
You are an utter star – that’s a fabulous tutorial! Thank you x
What a wonderful tutorial! I can’t wait to try it out. Love the music too :)
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
GAH!!! Can’t wait to try this — thanks so much, Katrina! Letterpress rocks, but you rock more! :)
Woot I did it! Thanks so much !
do you have this in a pdf for screenshot tutorial as well??
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!
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
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!)
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!
This is amazing Katrina!! Can’t wait to try it out :) You’re the absolute BEST!
Wonderful detailed tutorial. You are so flippin’ awesome.
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… :)
love this tutorial. Thanks KAtrina!!!
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! :)
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.
you are a fantastic teacher :) thanks for letting us share the letterpress love!
AHHH! Can’t wait to try this! It looks awesome and the font you chose for is perfect! :)
what an awesome tutorial :)
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.
This tutorial is ace! Thanks so much for sharing! Your blog rocks! :)
Thank you for this great tutorial. I LOVE IT. I have already tried it out. =) Tudeluuuu.
this is awesome. thanks!
This is fantastic…thanks for sharing and I love the font!
Liesl :)
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/
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
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!
Love it! I think I will use it just to decorate my office…or send cards to friends…or… :) Thank you for sharing!
Amazing tutorial! Thanks a lot!
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?
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?
Hi what a great tutorial! Can you please let me know what font was used? I love the ‘t’!
thank you thank you for this!!! you are da bomb. :)
My dear .. i cannot express how grateful I am for you and all your tutorials! Thank you for being a total Gem!
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.)
Amazinggggggggggggggggggg
Thank you
Hi, this is one of the most awesome tutorials about vintage letterpress in PS i have come across so far. Thanks a million !
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!
OMG I love it!! I just used it in my blog. It was just what i was looking for!!!!
1,000,000 thanx Katrina!!!!!!!!
Do you have a text version of this for those of us without the bandwidth on our iPhones or crappy laptops?
Thanks!
Thank you so much for everything, I not only love this tut, but all the other lovely stuff you offer and also the inspiration.
Loving this tutorial! Thanks for taking the time to spell it all out.
Thank you so much for this fantastic tutorial – you are a Godsend!!!
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. :)
@sunshine: i’m glad you liked it! Oh, and that font is called Verner from myfonts.