Laying the Bricks

We are going to use a ready-made pattern for laying our bricks. Used in association with the Emboss filter, this pattern will let us give depth to the title bricks.

1. Create a new layer and call it Bricks.
   
   
2. Assign RGB values: 150, 0, 0 to the foreground colour and RGB values: 223, 178, 178 to the background colour.
   
   
3. Select Filter > Render > Clouds.
   
   
We are going to place the bricks on this Bricks layer. The Cloud filter creates the colour and the surface of the bricks.


4. Duplicate the Text layer so as to create a Text Copy layer and then place the latter above the Bricks layer.
   
   
5. Set the Text Copy layer mode to Hard Light.
   
   
6. Open the pattern you downloaded at the beginning of this workshop, select all of it and then select Edit > Define pattern.
   
   
7. Select Edit > Fill, set Use to Pattern, Opacity to 100% and Mode to Lighten.
   
   


Figure 6: Using a pattern really makes life easier.


8. Select Filter > Blur > Gaussian Blur and apply a Radius of 2 pixels.
   
   
9. Select Filter > Blur > Gaussian Blur again and apply a Radius of 4 pixels.
   
   
10. Select Filter > Soften Gaussian Blur, apply an Opacity of 65% and set the Mode to Lighten.
    
    
11. Select Filter > Stylize > Emboss and apply an Angle of 130°, a Height of 2 and set Amount to 130.
    
    
12. Select Layer > Merge Down.
    
    


Figure 7: Our bricks are starting to take shape.