How to Create Inset Typography in Photoshop

Sep 10 2009 by Jacob Gube | 67 Comments

In this beginning-level design tutorial, I’ll show you how to apply a beautiful and super-easy text treatment in Photoshop: the inset text effect. It’s also often called the letterpress effect because it looks similar to text created by a Letterpress printer.

Final Result

Here’s a preview of what we’re about to create.

Creating the Photoshop document

1 Let’s start with the basics: setting up the Photoshop document. Open up Photoshop and create a new document (Ctrl + N). We’ll start with a small canvas, a 550px by 550px document, but know that later on, you’ll be able to adjust the canvas size of your project.

Creating the Photoshop document

Styling the Background Layer

2 We’ll add a Gradient Overlay layer style onto the default Background layer. To do this, we need to make the layer editable. Double-click on the Background layer in the Layers Panel, which will result in opening the New Layer dialog box. Enter a Name for the layer (by default – it’s Layer 0); I’ve named mine Background.

Styling the Background Layer

3 Double-click on the Background layer’s thumbnail in the Layers Panel to open up the Layer Styles dialog box. We want a vertical color gradient that transitions from darker blue (#003471) at the bottom, to a lighter blue (#448CCB) at the top. To begin, check the Gradient Overlay checkbox to apply the layer style. Then click on the color gradient on the right of the Gradient option to open up the Color Gradient Editor.

Styling the Background Layer

4 Double-click on the left Color Stop and enter the color value of a dark blue shade (#003471) which will be the color at the bottom of the canvas. Do the same for the right Color Stop, but this time, enter a lighter blue color (#448CCB). Let’s move the Color Midpoint to a Location of around 60% to make the darker blue color more dominant in the color gradient.

Styling the Background Layer

5 Lets give the background a light source from the top left corner of the canvas. Grab the Brush Tool (B) from the Tools Panel. Set the brush tip to a rounded brush (I used Airbrush Soft, but feel free to explore your options). Set the Diameter option to 500px, Opacity option to 60%, and Flow option to 70% in the Options Bar.

Styling the Background Layer

6 Create a new layer (Ctrl + Shift + N) on top of the Background layer where we will apply the light source, call it Background light source.

7 Set your Foreground color to white (#FFFFFF). With the Brush Tool (B) still active, click on the top left corner of your canvas.

Styling the Background Layer

Creating the Inset Type

8 Use the Horizontal Type Tool (T) to write some text onto the canvas. When choosing a font family, it’s best to choose something that’s bold and thick to more readily show the inset effect. This type effect also works best on larger font sizes. I used Rockwell Std set to Bold and with the font size set to 30px (you can set these options in the Options bar). The color doesn’t matter because we will use a Gradient Overlay layer style (later on) that will supersede whatever foreground color you used.

Creating the Inset Type

9 Let’s center the text in our canvas. In the Layers Panel, make sure the text layer is the active layer. Select the entire canvas by choosing Select > All (Ctrl + A). Then choose Layer > Align Layers to Selection > Vertical Centers. This will center the text vertically. With the canvas still selected, align the text horizontally by choosing Layer > Align Layers to Selection > Horizontal Centers to center our text in the middle of the canvas.

Creating the Inset Type

Adding the Inset Typography layer styles

10 We’ll be adding three layer styles on the Inset Typography text layer: a Gradient Overlay, an Inner Shadow, and a Drop Shadow. This is all we’ll need in order to get the inset text effect. Start by right-clicking on the Inset Typography text layer in the Layers Panel and then choosing Blending Options – this will open up the Layer Styles options dialog (alternatively, double-clicking on the layer in the Layers Panel will perform the same action of opening the dialog box).