How To Create Melting Text Effect in Photoshop

Make your text glow and flow with our newest melting text effect tutorial! The magnetism of fluid letters made of luminous material has got the hearts of many designers, and we're super excited to teach you to create a liquid text of your own.

We've been playing with soft textures for quite a while and should admit that they perform even better than the super popular glitch effect (never meant to offend glitch lovers). And if you wanted a sign to try yourself in creating a Photoshop melting effect, that's it! You'll have all the necessary resources and a super intuitive tutorial, so everything left is some inspiration and willingness to do Photoshop magic. It's like a chemistry lesson, but even better (and safer)!

Video Tutorial

Tutorial Assets

Here are the files you will need to complete the lesson and create a magnetic melting effect in Photoshop:

Creating Melting Text Effect in Photoshop

Step 1 – Create a new document with the size set to 1000 by 1000 px.

Step 2 — Enter any text you want and place it in the center of the document.

Step 3 — Right Click on the text layer and select Convert to Smart Object.

Step 4 — Add a gaussian blur effect and set the amount to about 2%.

Step 5 — After that add a Median filter and set it to 3.

Step 6 — Go to a Blur Gallery and add a Tilt Shift effect. Set it to about 20 and move the frame of the effect to the borders of your letters. Just like you can see on the below:

Step 7 — Add the Tilt Shift effect once more, but this time set the amount to 150 and make the frame wider.

Step 8 — Open the Liquify tool using the Shift-Control-X keys combination and set the brush size to 150.

Step 9 — Start dragging the top parts of the text up using the liquify tool.

When you finish, your melting text should look like in the image below: with soft smudges in the upper part. And we're just in the middle of the process; more Photoshop magic is yet to happen!

Step 10 — And now, repeat the same steps for the bottom part of the text.

Step 11 — Open the Blur Gallery, select Field Blur, and set it to about 12.

Step 12 — Let’s add some colors to our melting text! Go to Layer > New Adjustment Layer > Gradient Map and select our free gradient.

This is how the image should look:

Step 13 — You can easily change the colors of your liquid text design by creating a new Hue/Saturation adjustments layer and playing with the settings until you finally like the result.

Step 14 — For the final touches of our liquid text effects, let’s add some texture. Place a dust texture and change the Blending Mode to Exclusion and the Opacity to about 50.

Step 15 — Create a new layer and Fill (Shift-F5) it with black color.

Step 16 — Add a Noise filter with the following settings: Amount: 50, Distribution: Gaussian, and Monochromatic mode on.

Step 17 — Сhange the Blending Mode of the new texture to Soft Light and set the Opacity to about 45.

Step 18 — Finally, let’s create the Brightness/Contrast adjustment layer and move the sliders to the right.

Yay, our melting effect is ready! And by repeating the same actions for a different font, with different settings and color details, you can create a different melting text effect that would convey your artistic vision. Actually, this is one of the rare cases when you get a comprehensive quite allowing you to perform various experiments in Adobe Photoshop and end up with unique designs.

This tutorial was inspired by the Classic Halftone Photo Effects. So if you are a fan of such a style, want to get ready-made templates, or seek inspiration, that's the perfect pick. With its help, you can create a stunning melting text effect in Photoshop in seconds, and for your convenience, there are 15 premade designs to choose from. Also, since there are so many words you might use as a starting point for the project, find added 3 words width options for each text effect so both short and long ones look as fabulous as you imagine. To turn the grunge up even more, you can switch on the dust and noise overlays.

Liquid Text Effects Collection

With 15 fluid text effects of diverse stretched, melted, and glowing textures, your artistic potential is sure to bloom.

Iridescence: Liquid Textures Kit

Bright colors, smooth lines, and sharp shade contrast — these 32 bright textures are built on well-balanced opposites, making your heart beat faster.

Melting Illusion Text Effects

Electronic music had a great influence on this collection of 12 glitch text effects, visualising the gritty sounds.

written by

Ivan Gromov

Ivan is a Photoshop tutor and stock graphic designer who loves to create textures, templates, and all kinds of effects and tools for Adobe Photoshop. Be sure to check all his exclusive tutorials for Pixelbuddha!