How to Create a Cartoon Text Effect in Adobe Photoshop

Final product image — What You'll Be Creating

In this tutorial, I will show you how to create an easy cartoon text effect, using a pattern and a layer style. You can also try the Comics Effects pack from Envato Elements.

cartoon text effect photoshop — Here are some useful cartoon text effects from Envato Elements.

Tutorial Assets

The following assets were used during this cartoon text tutorial:

Brady Bunch Remastered cartoony text font
Red Dots pattern
Stars background

Before you start creating the cartoon text effect, download and install the cartoon text font and the pattern in Photoshop, and also download the background.

1. How to Load a Document Background

Our comic book font for Adobe Photoshop needs to have some adjustments first. We will use the Stars background from the Tutorial Assets as our document background. It is an 850 x 600 px JPG file. Go to File > Open and open star-background.jpg.

2. How to Create and Warp Text

This text effect is made of one layer, so you can save it as a new style in your Styles palette when you are done.

Step 1

Pick the Type Tool and select the Brady Bunch Remastered cartoony text font. Set the Font Size around 212 pt. Write "SMASH!" in capital letters and in any color.

Step 2

Now we need to stretch the letter spaces. Select the text layer, and then go to the Character panel and change the Tracking to -20. If you can't see the character panel icon, go to Type > Panels > Character.

Step 3

The last step before we start applying the layer style is to warp our text. Right-click with your mouse on the text layer and select Warp Text from the menu. Set the Style to Arc, select Horizontal, and set the Bend to 30% and Horizontal Distortion to -30%. Now hit OK to apply the changes.

3. How to Create a Cartoon Text Effect

Step 1

Let's continue with our comic book font in Adobe Photoshop. Select the layer SMASH! and Double-click the layer to apply the following layer style:

Add a Stroke with these settings:

Size: 10 px
Position: Outside
Blend Mode: Normal
Opacity: 100%
Fill Type: Gradient
Style: Shape Burst
Angle: 0°
Check the Dither box
Set the Gradient with these 2 color stops:
First gradient stop Color #f80000 and Location at 45%
Second gradient stop Color #000000 and Location at 59%

Step 2

Add an Inner Shadow with these settings:

Blend Mode: Normal with the Color #fff000
Opacity: 100%
Uncheck the Use Global Light before setting Angle: 180°
Distance: 3 px
Choke: 100%
Size: 0 px
Check the Anti-aliased box

Step 3

Add a Satin effect with these settings:

Blend Mode: Normal with the Color #fff000
Opacity: 100%
Angle: 90°
Distance: 2 px
Size: 0 px
Check the Anti-aliased box
Uncheck the Invert box, if checked

Step 4

Add a Color Overlay with these settings:

Blend Mode: Multiply
Click on the Color box and choose the color #fff000
Opacity: 100%

Step 5

Add a Pattern Overlay with these settings:

Click on the Pattern box and choose the Red Dots pattern
Opacity: 100%
Scale: 100%

Now you can change the pattern position: just click and drag your mouse over the text in the document to move the pattern up or down.

Step 6

Add an Outer Glow with these settings:

Blend Mode: Normal
Opacity: 100%
Set Color of glow #fff000
Technique: Softer
Spread: 94%
Size: 11 px
Check the Anti-aliased box

Step 7

As a final step, add a Drop Shadow with these settings:

Blend Mode: Multiply and pick the Color #000000
Opacity: 100%
Uncheck the Use Global Light before setting Angle: 120°
Distance: 8 px
Spread: 100%
Size: 20 px
Check the Anti-aliased box

Hit OK to apply the layer style.

Congratulations! Now You Know How to Edit Text With a Cartoon Effect

In this tutorial, you learned how to create a cartoon text effect in Adobe Photoshop.

We started out by creating and warping our text, and then we added multiple different effects to give our text a cartoon effect.

I hope you've enjoyed this tutorial on how to create a cartoon book effect, and if you like the final effect, don't forget to save it to your Layer Styles palette for future projects.

Follow along with us over on our Envato Tuts+ YouTube channel:

Want to see similar content to our tutorial about how to create a cartoon book text effect in Photoshop? Check out the following cartoon and comic book style tutorials here on Envato Tuts+: