In this tutorial you will learn how to create a love message on the sand using basic Photoshop filters, brushes and layer styles. Create a realistic “writing on sand” effect in Photoshop!
Program: Adobe Photoshop
Difficulty: Beginner
Estimated Completion Time: 20 – 30 minutes
The following assets were used during the production of this tutorial
Step 1
Open your beach (sand) stock. Press Cmd/Ctrl+Shift+N to make a new layer. Hit P to active Pen Tool with setting belows:
Make a path like heart shape:
If you’re not familiar with Pen Tool you can use heart shape from shape gallery.
Choose Paths from Layer Pallete, then double click Work Path, choose Save Paths then name it whatever you want. It’s a good way to restore your path and you can active it anytime on any layers you want.
Step 2
Hit Cmd/Ctrl+Enter to make selection from this path then go to Edit-Stroke with color # 45382f:
Choose Filter-Noise-Add Noise:
Go to Filter-Texture-Texturizer, choose Sandtone:
Step 3
Right click this layer, choose Blending options:
Then change the mode to Multipy 50%.
Name this layer as “heart shape”.
Step 4
Make a new layer, hold the Cmd/Ctrl while clicking the thumbnail of heart shape layer to load its selection:
Go to Select-Modify-Expand and set the value as 5:
Set the feather as 4 ( right click this selection, choose Feather):
Choose Edit-Fill with color #b79986:
Go to Filter-Add Noise then apply Texturizer filter again:
Step 5
Right click heart shape layer and load its selection again. Choose Select-Modify-Contract and set value as 3. Then set feather for it as 2.
Click the button at the bottom of Layer Pallete to add layer mask. We have result:
Still choose layer mask thumbnail, press Cmd/Ctrl+I to invert layer mask:
Name this layer as “stroke 1”.
Step 6
Right click “stroke 1” layer, choose Blending options:
Duplicate this layer and lower opacity to 50%. Right click it, choose Clear Layer Style:
Step 7
Make a new layer and place it on the top. Load selection of “stroke 1” layer. Do the same techniques in step 4, but with feather for selection = 12. We have result after applying Noise and Texture filter:
Then choose Filter-Noise-Dust & Scratches:
Load selection of “stroke 1” layer again then do the same technique in step 5 but with value of Contract as 2. This is result we get:
Step 8
Come back to heart shape layer. We’re going to change layer style effect again to make it look more realistic. Right lick it, choose Blending options:
Lower opacity to Multipy 40%:
Step 9
Still on heart shape layer, hold Cmd/Ctrl+click its thumbnail to load its selection. Choose Contract value as 3:
Right click this selection, choose Layer via Copy:
We have a new layer above heart shape layer. Name it “stroke inside”. Change opacity a bit to Multipy 30% and add layer mask with soft black brush of medium opacity ( 30-40%) to blur some sharp parts as shown below:
Step 10
We’re going to add some love texts for our picture. Make a new layer on the top. You can use handwriting font to do it but I recomend you to use your fingers with brush stroke.
I use soft brush with color # 45382f ( like in step 2 when making heart shape) to draw letters “I” and “U” and position them as the screenshot below shows:
Apply Noise and Texturizer with same settings like in step 2:
Call this layer as “letters”.
Step 11
Choose heart shape layer then right click it, choose Copy Layer Style:
Choose “letters” layer, right click it, choose Paste Layer Style:
Increase opacity to Multipy 60%:
Step 12
On letters layer, load its selection with contract = 2. Right click it, choose Layer via Copy, we have:
Add layer mask to blur some too visible stroke parts:
Step 13
Make a new layer and place it on the top. Load selection of letters again, apply Expand with value = 2 then stroke it with color #6c5c51:
We have result:
Step 14
In this step we make more stroke outside letters by creating two layers and doing the same techniques done in step 5, 6, 7 for heart shape, except don’t duplicate stroke-in step 6). Here is my result:
Step 15
The picture looks too bright so I use a Levels layer to fix it. Choose Layer-New adjustment layer-Levels:
Change the Shadow and Midtone value:
Step 16
We’re almost done! Create a new layer, set to Overlay 100% and fill with 50% gray:
Hit O to active Burn Tool, I set value for this tool as Midtones Range and 20-30% Exposure. Use it to darken some parts of our message. You can see how I used it with Normal mode ( dark parts on screenshot):
Final Result
We hope you enjoyed this tutorial on creating a love message on sand in Photoshop. You can also create this same effect in a few seconds by using a ready made Sand Text Photoshop Action!
