PSHERO | Photoshop Tutorials | Text In Stitches

Text In Stitches

I've had quite a few emails since posting the Copper Rivet tutorial asking how I created the stitched text in my final image. So in this Photoshop tutorial I'll show you how to convert text to a path and how to stitch that path using a custom brush set. Posted In Text Effects | Comments 86

Introduction

Over the years as a graphic designer I’ve accumulated a wealth of custom brushes, shapes and actions that I keep carefully organized and labeled for future use. The brush set I’ll be sharing with you today has been in my collection for probably five of six years and every once in a while I’ll find a good reason to load it into my brushes palette. If you’ve never done that before, don’t worry, I’ll walk you through it as we go.

If you’re playing along at home you should download the brush set before we get started.

Step 1

Lets go ahead and begin by opening a new document in Photoshop. Mine is 540×300 pixels at 72ppi.

Since stitching on a plain white canvas is a little silly, lets go ahead and spice up the Background layer with a little texture. By default the Background layer in any new Photoshop document is locked, so lets go ahead and double-click on the Background layer in the Layers palette to bring up the Layer Properties dialog box. Simply rename the layer or name it Background once again and hit OK to unlock the layer.

Step 2

Now that our Background layer is unlocked we’re going to add a Pattern Overlay Layer Style to it which will give us a quick and easy denim background to work with.

Control-Click (PC: Right-Click) on the Background layer in the Layers palette and choose Blending Options from the menu. This will bring up the Layer Styles dialog box. Click on the Pattern Overlay text in the left column. (You must click on the text and not on the checkbox. Clicking the checkbox will turn the style ON but it won’t give you the options for the style, so it is important to click on the text so we can modify the Pattern Overlay style options.)

Next we need to load a new set of Patterns into the Pattern Picker. Click on the Pattern swatch to reveal the Pattern Picker, then click the little circle with the arrow in it at the top right corner of the picker. Choose "Patterns 2" from the list and click OK to load the new pattern set into the Pattern Picker. Now simply click on the Denim swatch which is the 4th pattern in the set and click OK to close the Layer Styles dialog box and commit the style to the layer.

Yes, I know, this graphic is a mess… but hopefully it gets the point across.

Step 3

You should now have a background full of denim and a layer style icon in the Background layer of the Layers palette.

Step 4

It’s now time to add some text to our document. Press the D key to reset the foreground color to black, then press the T key to invoke the Type tool. Click on the stage to place the cursor and type some text onto it. Notice that when you added the text that Photoshop automatically added a new layer for it.

(*note: To commit the text you can either press the Enter key on the 10-key corner of your standard keyboard or click the Check-Mark in the Text Tool options bar at the top of Photoshop.)

Step 5

Now that our text is created and while we still have the Type tool chosen we need to create an outline path of the letters. Control-Click (PC: Right-Click) on the text on the stage and choose Create Work Path from the menu. This will create a white outline around each letter indicating that you’ve created a work path (obviously) which we will use later in the lesson to stitch around.

Step 6

Add a new layer above your text by clicking the Add New Layer icon at the bottom of the layers palette or by using the keyboard shortcut Command-Option-Shift-N (PC: Ctrl-Alt-Shift-N). Rename the layer by Double-Clicking on the layers name in the Layers palette. I called this new layer Stitches.

Step 7

Now it’s time to setup everything in preparation for the stitching, and the first thing we need to do is load the stitching brush set into our Brushes palette. If you haven’t downloaded them yet you’ll want to do it now by clicking HERE. Save the brush set to your desktop or someplace you’ll remember when we go looking for them.

Press the B key to invoke the Brush tool, then bring up the Brushes palette by choosing Window>Brushes from Photoshop’s main menu. In the upper right hand corner of the Brushes palette, click on the options icon and choose Load Brushes from the menu. Navigate to the brush stitches brush set that you just downloaded to your hard drive and click Load. You will then be asked if you want to Append the brushes to the end of your current brushes or if you want to replace the existing brushes by clicking OK. For my example I’m going to replace my existing brushes, but either option works fine.

Step 8

Now that the brush set has been loaded into the Brush Picker lets go ahead and select the V-shaped brush. We’ll need to make a few adjustments to the settings in the Brushes palette for this brush to make it work the way we want.

First off lets reduce the size of the brush to around 8 pixels in the Diameter setting then make sure the Spacing checkbox is checked and that the spacing is set to around 80%. The spacing change makes the V’s overlap enough to look like interlocking stitches.

Step 9

While still in the Brushes palette click down to the Shape Dynamics link on in the menu on the left and make sure that the Angle Jitter control is set to Direction. This will make the brush rotate as it goes around the corners to the different sides of our letters.

Step 10

At last it’s time to make the magic happen. Put on your wizard hat and swap the foreground and background colors by pressing the X key (white should now be showing as the foreground color at the bottom of the Tools palette). Press the P key to switch to the Pen tool and then Command-Click (PC: Right-Click) anywhere on that little white outline that is the Path around the text. Choose "Stroke Path" from the menu, make sure that "Brush" is selected from the drop-down menu and that the Simulate Pressure checkbox is un-checked then click OK.

You’ll now see that the brush we chose has been used to stroke the entire path of the text. Since we’re done with the path now you can either click over to the Paths tab in the Layers palette and delete it, or simply press Command-H (PC: Ctrl-H) to hid it.

Step 11

To make the stitches a little more realistic lets go ahead and add a few layer styles to the Stitches layer. Just like we did in Step #1 lets Command-Click (PC: Right-Click) on the Stitches layer and choose Blending Options. Now add a Drop Shadow and a Bevel and Emboss as shown below, be sure to check each setting to make sure you haven’t missed anything then click OK.

The slight Bevel and Emboss will add a little more dimension to the thread while the Drop Shadow will add a touch of shading around the edges.

Step 12

Before we move on let me show you a cool little trick to change the background color. Since the background is a preset color pattern and not an overlay we can’t just change an underlying layer color so we have to resort to other methods. Click on the Background layer in the Layers palette to make it the active working layer. Now lets add an adjustment layer by clicking on the Create A New Fill or Adjustment Layer icon at the bottom of the Layers palette (it’s the circle with half black and half white), choose Hue/Saturation and use these settings (or any that look pretty to you).

Step 13

The last little bit of adjustment I did was to click over to the Text layer in the Layers palette and change it’s Blend Mode to Multiply and it’s Fill opacity to 70%. By doing this we allow a little of the denim texture to come through onto our black letters adding a little depth and realism.

(*note: You could also paste some real fabric into a layer above the Text layer and use a clipping mask to add even more coolness.)

Step 14

Anytime you’re using a text to create this effect you will always have an outline of the lettering, but what if you just want to stitch letters? Well, if you’ve got a little experience with the Pen tool you can apply this same technique to any number of paths you’ve drawn yourself.

Below I’ve used the pen tool to draw some text.

Step 15

Then I switched to the Brush tool, lowered the diameter of the brush to 6 pixels, switched back to the Pen tool and Stroked the path just like we did back in Step 10.

I then added the same Bevel & Emboss and Drop shadow to this new layer of stitches as we did to the original text.

Step 16

In my final image I simply embellished on the techniques we’ve learned. Check out the .PSD download to view all my final adjustments!

Lesson Files + Additional Resources

Download the free .PSD file and other lesson files Right Here.

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86 Responses to Text In Stitches

?ß‚Äò?æ

September 5th, 2008 at 5:34 pm

Well done, I like your tutorials, they’re very clearly written. Continue the great work.
Paulo Sales

September 5th, 2008 at 6:12 pm

welcome back…!
fantastik…
jaunzim

September 5th, 2008 at 6:25 pm

What an awesome comeback!!!
Luv it!
Manuel Andrade

September 5th, 2008 at 6:32 pm

You?Ç¬¥re a man with a good heart indeed!
I didn?Ç¬¥t try it yet, but I?Ç¬¥m already thanking you…
Love the site and all your hard work. Bless you!

Greetings from Madeira – Portugal
Manuel Andrade
Daniel

September 5th, 2008 at 6:54 pm

Great tutorial, very interesting method!
HERO

September 5th, 2008 at 7:50 pm

Thanks for the welcome back wishes everyone! I’m excited to be back and psyched that you like the tutorial!
crazyhunk

September 5th, 2008 at 7:54 pm

I have been just waiting for one of your tuts m8….. u have been away for along time….. ne’way…. awsome tut… really like it…gr8 effect…
Thanx a lot….. :)
billseymour

September 5th, 2008 at 10:05 pm

With all this stitching and riveting fabric work you’re doing, Heidi Klum on Project Runway just announced:

“Hero, you vill be the winner,
Or you vill be oooot”. (…her version of ‘out’…)

Good tutorial. Gracias.
Filippe Santos

September 6th, 2008 at 6:53 am

hi i livi in brazil and i love this site, my inglesh is vary bad
Brooke

September 6th, 2008 at 11:35 am

Thanks for the tutorial. Fabric textures and textile-looking sites are becoming all the rage online; so perfect timing on this tut. Welcome back!
Sam

September 6th, 2008 at 4:14 pm

uhm, the brush download takes me to a page with a bunch of text, but nothing else. I’d very much like to try this effect out, but until that link is fixed, I can’t.
HERO

September 6th, 2008 at 4:43 pm

SAM,
Try right-clicking and choosing “Save Target As”, or just download the .zip file at the end of the lesson (it’s got the brush set included)
BlastBalastik

September 7th, 2008 at 8:00 am

Welcome back…

Good tutorial… I like it.
Johnson Koh

September 8th, 2008 at 4:34 am

I simply love this idea. Excellent work.
argengonia

September 8th, 2008 at 7:15 pm

Muy buen efecto y aparte genial lo del brush, very well, genial tutorial, thanks.
Marjan

September 10th, 2008 at 5:33 am

Very well written tut. Congrats.
mr. diggles

September 10th, 2008 at 4:17 pm

another slam dunk!
cooks my brain that you can come up with this stuff.
Dave

September 11th, 2008 at 6:47 am

This might be a silly rookie question, but how do I get the fonts for this project?
HERO

September 11th, 2008 at 4:27 pm

Dave, the font used for the PSHERO lettering is called Olden. I believe it’s a pay font, but you should be able to download a free font from DaFont.com that is similar.
jsteb

September 11th, 2008 at 5:52 pm

Great tutorial… the brush set link is broken. Can you re-link for download.

Thanks!
HERO

September 11th, 2008 at 6:11 pm

JSTEB,
Both the links to the .csh file are correct, it’s possible that your browser is trying to interpret the file rather than download it (if you get a funny page full of characters this is the case). If that’s the problem either download the complete .zip file at the end of the lesson or Right-Click on the brush link and choose “Save Target As” or “Save File As” and save it to your computer that way.
mydesige

September 12th, 2008 at 3:02 am

Thank you for tip.
Good Good Good
hunter

September 12th, 2008 at 5:07 pm

hey man!!!! youre so good, youre the best,very good tut.
ddmac

September 26th, 2008 at 1:10 am

sorry for being ignorant, how did you do stitch the red & blue background together?
HERO

September 26th, 2008 at 10:08 am

DDMAC, I simply created a path along the curved line and stroked it with the stitches brush the same way I created the “Rocks” text.
ddmac

September 27th, 2008 at 7:49 am

simply wonderful. thanks for being so helpful. :-)
julia

October 1st, 2008 at 1:35 am

i’ve done! a great tutorial, thank you!
SydneyBG

October 21st, 2008 at 5:30 pm

I need help though it is not quite related. When I create a piece of text in Photoshop on a transparent background because I want to put it over something on a web page I’m creating in Dreamweaver, it seems to have a thin white line around each letter of text, once I make it into a gif and save for web. How do I get rid of that?
HERO

October 21st, 2008 at 6:59 pm

SYDNEYBG,
The white line you’re talking about around your letters when you save as a .gif with transparency is caused because the .gif format doesn’t recognize partial transparency (which your anti-aliased text has at it’s edges). Modern browsers all support .png images and .png allows for semi-transparent pixels. Save your images as .png and you’ll solve your problem.

IE6 was the last Microsoft browser not to support .png files completely, so only a small demographic will see the images improperly, and you can have .gif images specified in your CSS file specifically for those IE6 folks if you’re concerned about them.
mojito

November 2nd, 2008 at 5:36 pm

next grrrr8!
thx
kashif

November 3rd, 2008 at 9:43 am

nice work
Great tutorial?¢‚Ç¨¬¶ the brush set link is broken. Can you re-link for download.

Thanks!
HERO

November 3rd, 2008 at 4:44 pm

KASHIF,
As commented earlier on this page: Both the links to the .csh file are correct, it?¢‚Ç¨‚Ñ¢s possible that your browser is trying to interpret the file rather than download it (if you get a funny page full of characters this is the case). If that?¢‚Ç¨‚Ñ¢s the problem either download the complete .zip file at the end of the lesson or Right-Click on the brush link and choose ?¢‚Ç¨?ìSave Target As?¢‚Ç¨¬ù or ?¢‚Ç¨?ìSave File As?¢‚Ç¨¬ù and save it to your computer that way.
serena

November 8th, 2008 at 8:35 am

hi, gr8 tutorial!!!
Just a question… I cannot download the .zip file.. but, cud you pleas tell me the name of the text you used??
i’m trying to download a similar one but I can’t find any!!!
thanks… bye from Italy.. :)
everlast

November 8th, 2008 at 12:28 pm

whenever i need help in PS there’s a tut by the hero!
thxalot for your GREAT JOB!!
:)
chinittoh

November 11th, 2008 at 2:12 am

nice!!!!

thanks for sharing..

it helps a lot..

more tuts please hehehe
Brad Strickland

November 13th, 2008 at 5:53 am

Excellent tutorial. I’ve been looking for a way to do letterman jackets every football season and give up on the idea because of the STITCHing.
aruna perera

November 15th, 2008 at 2:09 am

it is Excelient jop.Continue the great work.
mizi

November 26th, 2008 at 8:04 pm

it is great! simple but perfect!
Ippie

December 9th, 2008 at 12:18 pm

Beautiful/great & super tutorial, thanx mate
Sommer

December 11th, 2008 at 10:23 pm

Thanks for the tutorial! How would one go about stitching text such as your “rocks” example without having drawn the text? I’d like to create text stitched in a font that I choose without it being a stroke. Does that make sense?
HERO

December 13th, 2008 at 5:58 pm

SOMMER, Your question makes sense, but by using a standard font you’re always going to have to deal with an outline (stroke) scenario because converting text to paths by definition creates the outlines. I’m afraid to get the effect you want you’re going to have to get friendly with the pen tool.
PS Quilter

December 17th, 2008 at 1:50 pm

THANK YOU, THANK YOU, THANK YOU!!!! ;)
PS Quilter

December 17th, 2008 at 10:06 pm

for a past poster…The font was “Rockwell Extra Bold” (wasn’t it, HERO)? It might have been AI though a little. But it’s close.

Thanks for this Tut! I’m having fun with it.

I’m now trying to use this effect around shapes instead of text. Can you help me out?
HERO

December 17th, 2008 at 10:28 pm

PS QUILTER, The font is called Olden, but Rockwell is pretty close. As for your question regarding Shapes, just set the Custom Shape tool option to Paths (in the options bar at the top of PS when the Custom Shape tool is active). Once you’ve got the path, it’s just like what we did here.
Kayla

January 2nd, 2009 at 4:50 pm

Thanks again for another great tutorial. I’m just getting started with Photoshop, and I appreciate how easy it is to follow your tutorials!
Ottaviano

January 5th, 2009 at 9:31 am

Your tutorials are great, really well written.
rimanere

January 5th, 2009 at 8:07 pm

Hi Hero,
I followed your tutorial until step 10. When you say switch to the pen tool and right click, the option “Stroke Path” is inactive. Should I Use the pen tool to wrap all the letters before doing the right click?
I am programmer and a wannabe designer.
Thank you.
HERO

January 6th, 2009 at 1:58 pm

RIMANERE, the only thing I can see that would cause your problem would be if you’re not actually rignt-clicking on the path for the letters. So yes, if you use the pen (or path selection) tool to first select the paths, and then right-click, that should do the trick.
rimanere

February 9th, 2009 at 7:04 pm

HERO, Thank you for your help. You have the best PSD tutorials on the web.
Ruchi

February 23rd, 2009 at 5:11 am

Just the tutorial i was looking for……….. thank u thank u so much!! Very easy to follow.

Cheers,

Ruchi.
vivek bishnoi

March 14th, 2009 at 8:05 pm

A very nice tutorial.Keep the GOOD WORK.
THANK YOU for the Tuts.

Cheers,

Vivek
Sabine

March 24th, 2009 at 4:08 am

Great tutorial, that is what i am searching for. But i have a question. How do i get such a brush for ps saved. I did a black line and a white line and saved, but i cannot fill a path with this, cause this is only all over but not a line.
Hugs
Sabine
HERO

March 24th, 2009 at 8:13 am

SABINE, Brushes can only be black, no other colors.
mers

April 29th, 2009 at 1:41 am

thanks for sharing this idea….Its great!!!
photo retouching

May 10th, 2009 at 11:01 am

A very realistic result. Great tutorial!
Ron

May 22nd, 2009 at 9:47 pm

Funny, when I do step 10 I just get a white outline, no stitches.
HERO

May 23rd, 2009 at 9:51 am

RON, the spacing on your brush hasn’t been set right.
alec

June 18th, 2009 at 4:59 am

awesome tutorial
Kirra

June 19th, 2009 at 2:17 pm

I have a weird question. When I try to create a work path with my font, it doesn’t. The option is there and clickable but nothing happens when I click it. Is there a certain font I should use? Or a different way I should try?

thanks!
HERO

June 20th, 2009 at 4:40 pm

KIRRA, A few things you might check: Do you have the Faux Bold option turned on for the text you’re trying to convert? If so, you’ll need to turn it off. Secondly, after you click “Convert to Path” if no path outlines appear, click over to the Paths palette and see if a new work path has been created. If so, simply click on it to select it. Hopefully that helps solve your problem
Twiddledum

June 23rd, 2009 at 8:43 am

Hi Im having trouble changing the hue/saturation the colour doesnt change when i move the bars. Do you know what iv done wrong? great work by the way.
Jai prakash

June 24th, 2009 at 11:53 pm

Simply Superb fantastiiiiiiiiiiiikkkk
Lude

June 29th, 2009 at 2:07 am

Great Tutu Rial! Clear and no errors in your information … Thanks for the time and effort to help others further.
HERO

June 29th, 2009 at 11:30 am

TWIDDLEDUM, make sure the Preview box is checked.
david

June 30th, 2009 at 11:06 pm

thanks for this your tutorial….i really like it…
Shawna

July 3rd, 2009 at 3:48 pm

Awesome tutorial and very thorough, I didn’t have to guess where things were! I can’t wait for more!
emeka

July 6th, 2009 at 8:09 pm

They say “many have the knowledge but very few know how to impart it on other”, u’re surely one of those few.
dude..this tutorial totally rocks!
thanks
Stody

July 16th, 2009 at 4:25 pm

Great! I like this very much. Not only this is a very cool text design, the tutorial is easy to follow.
Thanks for this advice.

Greetz,
Stody
gigi

July 18th, 2009 at 7:15 am

worked like a charm!!!!! THANKS!
Laura

July 19th, 2009 at 3:40 pm

This is great – just what I was looking for! However, when I apply the stitching, the stitches are barely visable – maybe about 10-20%. I can’t get them to be a solid white. What am I missing? Thanks and I LOVE your design help!
John

July 19th, 2009 at 8:22 pm

Your tutorials are easy to follow and the results are excellent. I love this stiching technique! Very cool.
HERO

July 20th, 2009 at 3:17 pm

LAURA, Chance are that you’ve got your brush opacity set at something besides 100%. Press the B key to switch back to the Brush tool, then take a look at the opacity setting in the Brush Options bar at the top of Photoshop.
Laura

July 20th, 2009 at 8:23 pm

OK – the opacity was 100% but the flow was 25% – changed that to 100% and it works fine! Thanks for the suggestion.
HERO

July 20th, 2009 at 8:38 pm

Glad you got it figured out LAURA!
Sara

August 10th, 2009 at 9:29 am

God bless you, please put more lessons
Hussein

August 24th, 2009 at 8:23 am

Many thanks dear! This tutorial is so good!
sarah

November 5th, 2009 at 2:56 pm

thanks for your tutorial, i’m a bit slow when it comes to photoshop as i’m a very beginner but ive been looking for stitched text (as in the rocks part) all night, hopefully i can get to grips with the pen tool… though i have a graphics tablet, if i print out the font i want and trace it with the pen will this work????

thanks honey.
HERO

November 5th, 2009 at 6:27 pm

SARAH, if you want a font traced you don’t need to do it by hand. With the Pen tool active, Command-Click (PC: Right-Click) the text and choose Create Work Path, this will convert your text to paths which you can then stitch.
Ace

November 15th, 2009 at 6:18 pm

Thanks for the excelletn tutorial!
evilkitty75

November 18th, 2009 at 9:33 pm

ya i did what Hero said i found it easier
but thas the beauty of PS isnt it!
I Loved this tut thankyou Sarah XXX
evilkitty75

November 18th, 2009 at 9:33 pm

ya i did what Hero said i found it easier
but thas the beauty of PS isnt it!
I Loved this tut thankyou XXX

oopsee
Zeeshan

November 26th, 2009 at 12:04 pm

Superb stuff………..
Tutorial Lounge

January 6th, 2010 at 9:47 am

beautiful text effect you sharing in the shape of an best training using Photoshop.
Joel

January 22nd, 2010 at 3:37 pm

that’s so cool! thanks
Jessica

January 29th, 2010 at 4:37 pm

Hero, thank you so much for “pandering” to us ladies. I design digital scrapbook kits and most all of your tutorials are somewhere in my work! Finest tutorials on the internet! You Rock!
momsthewordus

February 3rd, 2010 at 4:39 pm

Thanks so much! I love this tutorial. I can’t wait to start creating.