Jungle Text

Learn how to create this beautiful jungle text graphic with Photoshop. This tutorial will show you how to draw vines, berries, and leaves.

Preview of Final Results

Jungle Text Photoshop Tutorial

Step 1

Hit Ctrl + N to open a new project with dimensions of 600 x 375 in RGB/8 with transparent background. For the background, you have two options: You can paint a simple scene with trees, shrubs, and earth then blur them and play with the curves, or you can use a picture (of your own or a free stock photo) of a nice nature scene. Here weâ€™ve simplified this step for you as it takes time, so you can use this image for your scene. After playing with brushes, curves, and blurs, hereâ€™s what weâ€™ve came up with:

Step 2

Now you can hide this window as weâ€™ll come back to this later, but first we need to make the leaves and berries. First youâ€™ll need to find a leaf texture. Here is Caleb Kimbroughâ€™s texture from https://lostandtaken.com/

Step 3

After loading your leaf texture into a new project (name the layer â€˜Leafâ€™), hit M on keyboard to select Rectangular Marquee Tool. Right-click, select Free Transform, right click again, select Warp. Now that your leave is in warp mode, click and drag the top left corner down about 1/3 of the grid, then repeat with bottom-left corner. It should look something like this:

Step 4

Now play around with the two corners, using the arms (the things with the gray circles) to pull them together creating a sharper point, like this:

Now we can use the Polygonal Lasso Tool (L) to select the excess parts to make the point sharper. Your leaf should look something like this:

Step 5

Go back to the warp tool (see step 3) and this time, move the bottom- right corner upward. Make sure the arms of this corner are parallel:

Step 6

Do the same for the top-right corner,

Step 7

Then go back to free transform, only this time use the distort and perspective functions to give it a bit of a distance perspective:

Step 8

Next, duplicate the layer with the leaf on it and drag this new layer below â€˜Leafâ€™ layer. Warp it a little to show some difference. Repeat process as much as you like!

Step 9

On each layer you can add a simple drop shadow by double-clicking on the layer and checking the â€˜Drop shadowâ€™ box, and adjust the distance, size, and opacity of each leaf accordingly to give the leaves more depth. The larger leafâ€™s opacity is 64%, its distance is 23, and its size is 51. If you have a leaf directly above another, you will want to have the distance significantly lower, as well as the size. It should be more sharp and distinct.

Step 10

Double-click on â€˜Leafâ€™ and check Bevel and Emboss box. Change the depth to 100%, size to 65px, and soften to 0px. You can also lower the opacity of highlight and shadow mode. Repeat with remaining layers:

Step 11

Letâ€™s add some depth of field. Select the leaf that is below the rest then right-click on the layer in the Layer Window and select Convert to Smart Object (will allow you to change the settings of your applied filters non-destructively). Now select Filter > Blur > Gaussian Blur and set it to 2.6 pixels. Repeat with other leaves, working your way up to the top of the layerâ€™s list, and remember to lower the blur as you get closer to largest leaf. Now select the Smart Object (in the layerâ€™s panel) of the â€˜Leafâ€™ layer. Hit D and paint over the main areas of the leaf except the edges (youâ€™ll find that this removes the Gaussian blur in the areas that you paint black.) Play around with the warping as itâ€™s the most important (and fun!) part.