Simple Extruded Text

In this tutorial, we'll make extruded text, as in this example:

We'll begin with some raster text and create the extrusion using the Drop Shadow effect.

Begin by opening a new image. Set the Height and Width fairly high to be sure that you have plenty of room for the extrusion. You can crop the image later, when your text is done.

Choose the Text tool. In the Tool Options palette, select Floating. Also set Font and Size. If you want a stroke (outline) on your text, set Stroke width (pixels). A small stroke, maybe just 1 pixel, will probably give the best results.

(If the Tool Options palette isn't showing in your workspace, press F4 to toggle it on.)

On the Materials palette, select the colors for the stroke and fill for your text. If you select a stroke, set it to a color that is darker than the fill and that matches the color you'll use for the extrusion.

With the Text tool, click in the image canvas where you want to place the text. You'll then see the Text Entry dialog box. Enter the text you want in the Text Entry dialog box:

Click Apply. If the text isn't positioned exactly where you want it, drag it into place with the Text tool. Be sure to leave yourself plenty of room for the extrusion.

Your image will then look something like this:

If you look on the Layers palette, you'll see above the Background a layer button labeled Floating Selection. (If the Layers palette isn't showing on your workspace, press F8 to toggle it on.)

Right-click the Floating Selection layer button and choose Promote Selection to Layer. The Layers palette then looks like this:

Turn off the selection with Selections > Select None (or just press Ctrl+D).

Now it's time to begin to add the extrusion. Choose Effects > 3D Effects > Drop Shadow. Set the Offsets to a small number. (-2 is used for both Horizontal and Vertical in my example.) Set Opacity to 100 and Blur to 0 or 1. Set Color to whatever color you want for your extrusion. If you put a stroke on your text, use the same color that you used for the stroke. Select Shadow on new layer.

What you do next is repeat the last step a few more times. You can call up Drop Shadow each time, but an easier way to go is to press Ctrl+Y, which repeats whatever your last action was.

When you have the effect you want, the Layers palette will look something like this:

Your image will look like this:

You can then crop the image if you like, or merge the text and shadow layers. To merge the text and drop shadow layers, hide the Background layer by clicking its Visibility toggle on the Layers palette, then right-click on one of the other layer buttons and choose Merge > Merge Visible. Then show the Background layer by clicking its Visibility toggle again.
Save your image and you're done.

One variation on this method is to make the drop shadows progressively darker. You can do that by adjusting the color in the Drop Shadow dialog box each time. There's an easier way, though, if you created each drop shadow on its own layer as outlined above: Use Adjust > Hue and Saturation > Hue/Saturation/Lightness on each shadow layer to adjust the lightness as you want. In either case, the result will be something like this:

And keep in mind that once you've merged the text and shadow layers, you can add a normal drop shadow to your text, too, like this:

Try out simple extruded text and see what variations you can come up with!