3-D Logos in Photoshop

Creating a 3-D Logo -
The following steps will explain how to create a 3-D logo using only Photoshop.

1. Open Photoshop and start a new Image. Our example uses a canvas size of 320x320. You can make it any size you need, but I recommend starting fairly large to begin.

2. Make a new layer by going to the main menu at the top, and select Layer/New Layer (or Ctrl+N). This will be the layer we put your logo on.

3. Insert your logo in the middle of the canvas, making sure it's on the New Layer, and not on the Background Layer:

[ logo ready to go 3-D ]

	Note
For the highlights to look correctly, it is important that you choose black as the color to start your logo. If you have a plain, black & white version of your logo, that would work best for this effect. Using black gives a more natural look to the highlights than starting out in your desired color.

4. Once your logo is on the canvas and its own layer, go to the Main Menu and select Edit/Transform/Skew. Drag out the bottom corners to make your image look similar to this, and hit ENTER to accept the changes:

[ use free transform to skew the image ]

	Note
You can also right-click on the logo itself and select Free Transform from the popup menu. Then right-click again to select the Skew option. This is a good shortcut a quite a few menus in Photoshop.

5. Next, re-open the Free Transform Menu and select Scale to reduce the height of the logo a little. You want to squeeze it down to give it a little more perspective, and once we've done the next few steps, you'll get a better idea why. Make the image look like this one, and hit ENTER to accept the changes:

[ squeeze down the image ]

6. Move your logo so it's in the middle of the canvas by dragging it with the Move Tool . Now your image should look similar to mine:

[ logo with some perspective ]

7. Now it's time to add some dimension and shape to the logo, so we're going to add a slight emboss to it. On the Main Menu, choose Filter/Stylize/Emboss. Set the properties panel to something similar to this:

[ bevel and emboss settings ]

8. After you apply the Emboss filter, your image should look similar to this one:

[ logo with bevel and emboss ]

9. We're finally to the meat of the effect! The trick to this effect is so simple, and looks fantastic!
   
   Make sure the layer with your logo is selected. On your keyboard, hold Crtl+Alt, and then hit the UP arrow key. This a keyboard shortcut to duplicate layers easily. You can see the effect of your logo becoming 3-D right away! Make as many layers you think looks good. I duplicated the layer 10 times:

[ duplicating layers gives it a 3-D look ]

10. If this is the colors you wanted for your logo, then you're done! Otherwise continue on so we can learn how to colorize it.

11. Oh! you're still here....great! OK, time to colorize. We need to merge all of the duplicated layers you just created. Go to your layers panel and merge them down by selecting the top layer (the last one created) and hit Ctrl+E on your keyboard. Do this as many times needed to get your now 3-D logo on to one layer. Don't merge it all the way down, leave your background layer there.

	Note
You can also go to the main menu and select Layer/Merge Down, starting with the top layer, however, keystrokes tend to be quicker than using the Main Menu.

12. Now that the logo is on it's own layer, we want to give it some color, right? Of course we do. In the Layers Panel, select the layer with your now 3-D logo on it. Staying at the Layers Panel, hold Ctrl while you click a second time on the Layers panel. This will select and highlight your logo on the canvas:

[ selecting your logo to colorize it ]

13. Make a new layer above the layer with your logo. Make sure the new layer is selected, and then choose the Paint Bucket Tool. Select the color you want, then fill in the empty layer within the selection.

14. Go to the Layer Panel and change the layer type from Normal to Color.

	Note
Coloring is pretty fun as well, and you'll find it's one of the more flexible parts of this technique. You could have started your image in any color, but using black gives a more natural look to the highlights then starting out in your desired color. Duplicating color layers can also increase the amount of color that shows through.

15. If you need to, you can change your background color to whatever you want to match the logo.

16. You can easily add drop shadows, glow effects, etc once you've gotten all the layers merged down to one. Here's the final graphic logo after adding a few other effects to the logo:

    

    [ final 3-D logo in photoshop ]

As you can see, doing 3-D in Photoshop is fun, and it's very easy to do. Once you've practiced this technique a few times, you'll see how quickly you can whip up a cool-looking 3-D logo. Most of the steps are flexible in that you can change the settings and attributes as you see fit for your work and design.

Here's a couple examples where I used this technique on real web sites: