12/17/2009
Why do you love the holidays? Is it because you get to spend time with your family, eat like crazy, open gifts, buy gifts, or to create some awesome text using Photoshop? Well, for me, it is all of the above <grin>. I love the holiday season, it brings out the best is everyone. For this tutorial, I will show you how to create some really cool candy cane text using Adobe Photoshop. I currently use CS4, but you could get this done in CS2, or CS3. Enjoy!
Open up Photoshop and create a new document that is 10px wide, by 1 pixel high. Zoom all the way in, and make half of the document red (#ff0000), and the other half white (#ffffff).
This is my zoomed in document.
Turn this document into a pattern. Go to edit > define pattern and create a name for it.
Create a new document with your desired size. For this example, I used 500 width x 100 height.
In your new document, go to edit > fill. In the drop down choose pattern and then choose the candy cane pattern.
You will have this:
You want to extend the height of this and hit control-t and then extend the top and bottom like so:
To make life easy, hit alt and shift before you make the background bigger. This will make like easier. 
Now you want to create the angle on this, so while you are still in transform, click on the middle box on the top or bottom, hit control + alt + shift and drag the mouse to the left (or right).
(click image for full view)
Click on your Text Icon 
and create new text.
It is hard to tell, my text is in white, and it says Candy Cane Text. Make sure the text layer is on top of the red stripes.
On your text layer, go to layer > layer styles > blending options…
Use the following options on your text layer.
Blending Options: Custom
Drop Shadow
Inner Glow
Bevel and Emboss
Gradient Overlay
You will not have this:
Step Nine
Now you want to create the red stripes that are outside of the candy cane text. To do this, hold control and hit the text layer.
Then go to Select > Inverse or hit shift + control + I.
Select the layer with the red stripe and hit delete on your keyboard.
Create a new layer on the bottom and add your background color or image.
You are now finished.
I used this effect on my person logo.
Filed under Photoshop Tutorials, Tutorials / How To's, gallery