The Method

1. In Photoshop, create a new file: Co - N with these dimensions;
17 x 15cms @ 250ppi, RGB.
2. Hit the F key too centre your image on screen with a grey
background.
3. Next click on the top colour swatch in the tool bar, wait for
the colour dialogue, and choose PANTONE process coated, then
just type 412 which will select PANTONE DS 41C.
4. Then (Alt/Option - Backspace/ Delete) to fill the layer with
this colour.
5. Make a new layer (icon beside Trash in Layers Palette) and
fill (repeat 2. but type in 66. You will get PANTONE DS 66C.



6. For both layers one at a time go: Filters - Noise – 20 then,
7. Filters - Blur - Motion Blur – Distance 35 - Angle 33.
8. Then adjust the opacity of the top layer to 70%.
9. Top layer go: Image - Adjustments - Brightess & Contrast
and move the sliders to: Brightness - 8. Contrast + 19.
10. With the Burn Tool set to a brush size of 445 and the pressure
to 20%, burn some shadow streaks at random (below);
11. Merge these two layers (Layers palette – merge down) so
that you now have one layer.

Left: Grain effect with burns. Right: Drag handles to resize box.

12. Make a duplicate layer of the top one (4) by dragging
the top layer to the new layer icon in the layers pallete
(or Co – J).
13. Go: Edit - Free Transform (Co - T) and drag the handles
to form another square like so (above). Or type these
attributes into the Transform menu; Width = 85.8%, Height
= 85.8%.
Hit Return or Enter when you have finished.
14. Go Layer – Layer Style - Bevel & Emboss. and adjust
to these guides (below). You just want a subtle bevel here,
not too much.



15. Now Merge these two layers into one.



16. Now that we have our wooden base-board, we can
start creating the text. You should be now getting to
grips with how this is possible? okay.
17. Type Tool (T). Select Times italic lower case and
type in an ‘e’ @ 700 pts. It is irrelevant what colour you
have here as we will discard this layer it in a minute.
18. Select Free Transform (Co- T) and drag the 'e' to
roughly 3/4 of the window similar to below. Hit Enter
(on far right of keyboard) to confirm this action.



19. Turn the ‘e’ eye off in the layers palette, then hit
your Text tool (T), select 'Times italic' with an initial
capital and type Showroom in 72 pts. This will ensure
that you type on a new layer, if you have the other
layer active, it may well write Showroom on the same
layer as ‘e’ in the same point size, not what we want.
20. Link both of these type layers together in the
layers palette, by clicking the space next to the eye
icon, to activate the chain (see below).

21. With the Showroom layer still active, click the
small triangle in the top of the layers palette drop
down menu; Merge Linked This gives you one
layer so we can ad some effects. It means however that you can't change the type itself, but that's
okay in this case.



22. Point your Move tool (V) on this new layer in
the layers palette and Co - click. This turns the
type into a selection (see below).


Layer selected.


23. We are going to punch the type layer through
the wood layer below. So with the 'e' still selected,
click the layer directly BELOW the type and go
(Co - J) then turn the eye off beside the text layer.
What you should now see…is nothing! That's because
it has copied the background exactly and is sitting on
TOP of the layer stack. You won't see this unless
you turn all the other layers off....or go to



24. Layer - Layer Style – Bevel & Emboss. Hey! that
looks good! You may need to move this window a bit
to see the effect. Use these settings; Depth 100%,
Size 5, Direction up. On the left of the same menu,
click Drop Shadow and Inner Glow.



That is about it really, but you can also add this
if you like.

25. Make a duplicate copy (Co – J) of the 'e'
and darken it until it is almost black. Drop this new
layer behind the top 'e'. Reduce the opacity of it to
about 30% and blur it a bit if you like, then move it
a little to the left with your keyboard arrows (make
sure that you have your V tool selected to do this!).
This just gives it a bit of weight to the finished work.
Finally you can use the Burn tool (C) (hold the 7th
tool bar icon down until you select the Burn tool), and
darken various bits of it with a fairly large brush size
to give it a sheen type finish. The Tool size enlargement
(}) or reduction ({) is the Curly Bracket keys.



This (above) is the first attempt at this technique and has
a thicker feel to it, due to the duplicate layer beneath
being slightly larger. Since I made this image, I have
changed it a tad and is the basis for our tutorial.
It just shows how you can change the actual feel of the
wood. I still quite like the first one, it has a more
'chunky' and softer type of feel to the wood. So it is up
to you what sort of wooden feel you create, this tutorial
is designed to just give you an approach.

Email me with what you have created, I would love to see it.