Battlestar Galactica Text

In this tutorial, we’re going to create the text effect seen on the new Battlestar Galactical logo (check out the website at www.sci-fi.com/battlestar for an example).

The first thing we need in order to achieve this effect is the font. So head on over to daFont and download the Galactica font and install it on your system.

Next, create a new document, grab your type tool and select the Galactica font. Set the font size to 72pt, set the text color to black, and then type your text.

Adobe Photoshop Tutorial - Battlestar Galactica Text Effect - Fig. 1

Now go to the Layers palette and right click on the type layer and select “Rasterize Type” to convert the text to a bitmap.

Now grab your paintbrush tool and select a small brush, 3-4px in width, and go in and carefully fill in the white gap, that the letters are solid, like so.

Adobe Photoshop Tutorial - Battlestar Galactica Text Effect - Fig. 2

Continue doing this for all of the letters, until your text now looks like this (I went ahead and joined the “LA” and “CT” together, just because I wanted to re-create the actual logo, not just the text effect).

Adobe Photoshop Tutorial - Battlestar Galactica Text Effect - Fig. 3

Next, hit Ctrl+J to duplicate the layer (call the new layer “red fill”. Then click on the eye icon next to the “red fill” layer in the Layers palette to hide it.

Great! Now go back to your base layer and grab your selection tool and select the first half of the word, in my cast, the “GALA.” Hold down Ctrl and hit the right arrow key 5 times. Then hit Ctrl+Shift+I to invert the selection, then, holding Ctrl, hit the left arrow key five times. Basically, we just want to separate the text at the middle. Don’t worry that the letters may overlap.

Adobe Photoshop Tutorial - Battlestar Galactica Text Effect - Fig. 4

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Added Sunday, October 22nd, 2006 at 5:40 am under Text Effects.