This blog entry is going to be pretty short, because for the bulk of the technique here I’ll refer to Corey Barker’s article in the November 2013 Photoshop User (follow the link if you’d like to join NAPP and get the article.)

With this image I was trying to increase my abilities with the 3D text and trying to realistically blend it into an image. To do so I started with this image of the 1932 Waco UBA on grass, you can see this plane in person at the Western Antique Aeroplane and Automobile Museum. I felt that the mixed field of grass and clover would provide greater challenge in making it appear as if the text was sitting on the field.

The making of the 3D text went smoother and faster this time. My improving familiarity with the process made things move much faster, but the render still took a long time. I was doing this on a full res image, however. If you do it on a smaller image, I’m sure it will go much faster.

The real fun came after the render was complete. I created a layer mask on the 3D layer, then lowered the opacity of the layer a little to help me see the grass and clover under the text and shadow. Then with a very small brush with about 80% hardness, I painted on the mask in black over blades of grass and pieces of clover that I felt would be sticking up from the shadow into the light. Also I painted on the mask over grass and clover I felt would be sticking up in front of the letters. In reality, the clover was shorter in the area the text now rests vs. where the plane sits.

Take a look at my 3D text experiments, or my images of the Waco UBA.