So I’ve really started poking around the internet, and it’s amazing the kind of things you can do with Photoshop effects. Why have I only spend all of this time using it to graft people’s heads onto other people’s bodies, and other boring uses?

Previously, I showed my results from following a few tutorials online. Well, I’ve discovered a few more tutorials that I found do-able, and here are the results!

(Side note: I’m using Photoshop CS4. There are a number of tutorials out there for the far newer CS6, which has some new 3-D features and other glitzy things that I can’t do. Sad face, but I’m not about to shell out a gajillion bucks for a few new features.)

This is the ultra-glossy text effect tutorial from Wegraphics. It felt like a kind of metallic sign hanging on the wall to me, so I adjusted my text accordingly.

Here’s the first video I followed, as opposed to a series of screenshots and instructions: using PS text effects to give the impression of letters carved in wood, from Ice Flow Studios. I had to pause and skip backward a few times, but overall the following-a-video experience was a good one. A+, would learn from again.

Next up was a pretty easy way to put a photo inside your text, from Photoshop Essentials. It’s a good step toward knowing how to do old-fashioned postcards. Although I believe there’s a tutorial out there for that style of postcard, as well.

This is a tutorial for a dynamic particle explosion from the Photoshop Lady. It includes a link to her free brush set of dust particles, which I can see coming in handy for a thousand and one uses. I’ll admit, this tutorial forced me to look up a second tutorial, because the instructions just said to “add a Gradient Map adjustment layer,” so I had to figure out how that was done. Fortunately, Googling that very phrase got me what I needed.

Last up is the magma hot effect from Tuts+. I figured I’d try a simple object instead of text, and I think it still worked quite well. It makes the mouse even more of a badass than he already is.