How to Create a Shadow Text Effect in Affinity Photo

What You’ll Be Creating

If you want to learn how to create more Affinity Photo text effects, then this tutorial is for you. This simple yet cool text effect is based on a bold font and a shadow layer effect with a few minor adjustments. In just a few steps, you will learn how to create it, and then you will be able to apply this technique to make other cool Affinity text effects. Let’s start!

What You Will Learn in This Affinity Photo Text Effect Tutorial

How to create a shadow text effect in Affinity Photo
How to work with the Affinity Photo text tool
How to apply a drop shadow in Affinity Photo

Tutorial Assets

You will need the following font in order to complete this Affinity Photo text effect:

Hartone

1. How to Open a New Document in Affinity Photo

Launch Affinity Photo and go to File > New to open the New Document window. Type the dimensions of the new document and use the settings shown below; then hit Create.

Document resolution: 72
Document units: Pixels
Color format: RGB

2. How to Create the Affinity Photo Text Effect Background

The background plays an important role in this shadow text effect as this has a black and white look, but it can also look great using two other high-contrast colors.

Grab the Rectangle Tool (U) and draw a shape the same size as your artboard, which is 1920 x 1080 px. Color it with black or a very dark shade.

3. How to Create a Shadow Text Effect in Affinity Photo

Step 1

Let’s start by using the Affinity Photo Text tool (T) to write the text, and then we’ll make a few adjustments to it. Write “OMBRES” (which means shadows) on the center of your artboard using the Hartone Font, with a size of 550 pt. The fill color is white.

Step 2

With the text still selected, go to the Character panel (View > Studio > Character) and increase the Tracking from 0% to -100% in order to reduce the space between the letters. The goal is to have no space between the letters so that they start to overlap.

Reposition the text in the center of the artboard by pressing Align Center and Align Middle in the Alignment panel at the top of the application.

Step 3

While the text is still selected, go to Layer > Convert to Curves (Control-Return) followed by Arrange > Ungroup (Control-Shift-G), and you will get the individual letters.

Step 4

Before you continue, you need to change the layer order, meaning that the letter “O” should be the first layer at the top of the Layers panel and the letter “S” should be the last one. Select each letter and drag it upwards to reverse the order. We do this so the shadow will fall correctly on the letters.

Step 5

In Affinity Photo, add a shadow by choosing between Outer Shadow, Inner Shadow, and Outer Glow in some cases, depending on the graphics and the settings used. Let’s see how to add a shadow to text in this case.

While all the letters stay selected, go to the Effects panel (View > Studio > Effects) and make sure to check the box in front of the Outer Shadow effect to activate it. Next, click on the settings wheel on the right side to open the entire Layer Effects window.

Step 6

You need to change the default settings shown above to obtain shadows that work best for the look we are trying to achieve, a quite strong shadow that falls on the right side of each letter. In the image below, you can see the settings used:

Blend mode: Multiply
Opacity: 100%
Radius: 100 px
Offset: 35 px
Color: black
Angle: 0 degrees

Step 7

Here is an extra adjustment that you can make to this Affinity Photo drop shadow text effect. Select all the letters and drag the right side of the bounding box inwards with the Move Tool (V). This will make the letters overlap even more, and the shadow effect will be a bit more intense.

Congratulations! You’re Done!

Here is how your shadow text effect should look. I hope you’ve enjoyed this tutorial and will create more Affinity text effects in the future.

Feel free to adjust the final shadow look of the letters and make it your own. Also try other colors and make it your own unique design. You can find some great sources of inspiration at Envato Elements, with interesting solutions to stylize any text effect.

Want to Learn More?

We have loads of tutorials on Envato Tuts+, from beginner to intermediate level, including other Affinity Photo text effect tutorials, courses, and text effects in general. Take a look!

Post date October 19, 2022

This content originally appeared on Envato Tuts+ Tutorials and was authored by Diana Toma

What You'll Be Creating