Download a list of all the start files used from www.sxc.hu
Click here to follow part 1 of this tutorial
It’s very important to use the right colours to make your piece believable. Change the contrast (Image>Adjustments>Brightness and Contrast), play with Curves (Image>Adjustments>Curves) and alter the Vibrance (Image>Adjustments>Vibrance). Try to make the ice very shiny and cold looking. Our goal is to make people feel as if it is winter when they look at this piece.
Merge all the layers for each letter, so that each character will be just one layer. You will probably have trouble finding the layers for each letter if you haven’t labelled and grouped them as you’ve gone along. To make it easier, select Move tool and press Cmd/Ctrl and click on the ice, and it will show which layer it is on.
Click on the layer of the letter ‘F’, then Ctrl/right-click>Blending Options. Choose Drop Shadow, setting Size to 250pt and Opacity to 77%. This shadow will help us to see the letters more distinctly and it puts some distance between them. Make sure that the layers of the letters are in the right order.
Above all your layers make a new layer. Choose any brush that you like for creating some highlights and set the blending mode to Overlay. Choose white for the colour and start clicking on the ice – you will see that Overlay makes it look very shiny and more glamorous. Keep adding accents until you’re satisfied and make sure that they all conform to one source of light.
Now select the Burn tool and start making the dark places of the ice even darker. Be careful not to make any part of the letters too dark (ie black), because that will look horrible. Basically we are trying to add more contrast to the piece, making the darks darker and the lights brighter.
We still have a very simple background. Now you are free to add some lights to it, some more shadows or make a few simple, geometric shapes with Pen tool. Give yourself enough time to make the background better. A good background can make your piece a lot more professional.
We have basically finished our piece now. We just have to make a few last changes to make it even more beautiful. Merge all the layers and then go to Image>Adjustments>Brightness and Contrast and play with the settings. Before merging the layers, make sure you saved your layered file separately.