Adding Spiral Beams around your objects really gives a 3D sense to your objects. We will see on this tutorial how you can add these beams around any object you may want to give depth to using Photoshop CS4. For the purposes of this tutorial we suggest using a 3D object like this sphere but any object would do.

1. The first thing we want to do is create a new layer.

2. Next we will open our path’s panel and choose the ellipse tool. Once you pick the ellipse tool go to the tool’s options bar on the top toolbar and click on the middle icon named Path, you can easily identify it by hovering over with your cursor on the icons of the toolbar. This will turn your cursor into a little pen tool. With this tool chosen draw a very thin wide oval near the base of your object.

3. Next we need to choose our direct selection tool. This is placed usually just over the ellipse tool, on the lower portion of the tools toolbar and is marked with a black arrow. Click on it and select the path of the oval object you just designed, this will bring up 4 anchors. We want to add 2 more anchors to these, so we will go to the Pen tool and from the available tools choose the add anchor tool. Click on it and create 2 extra anchors just on the edges of your object on the areas highlighted.

4. Once we have all 6 anchors set, we will go back to the direct selection tool and we will choose the anchors that would stand lie behind our object and delete them. This will give us a flat C running around in the front side of our object.

5. Next we will grab this path and move it down to the new path button. This is placed on the bottom toolbar of the paths panel. Once done right click on it and duplicate that path. We will now edit the duplicate path we just created. We will select the path that runs on the left side of our object and delete it.

6. Next we will grab our brush tool, which is placed on the top side of the tools toolbar.
Click on it and go to brush options, we will set the brush diameter to 7pxls and set hardness to 100%. Next click on the brush options dialogue box, which is placed just on top of the paths panel you have running and turn shape dynamics ON.

7. Next right click on the duplicate path and select stroke path. Choose brush and simulate pressure. This will create a beam that whirls around the object.

8. Now we will switch to the original path and again on the path selection tool. Select the paths of the swirl we created before, hold down the shift key and hit the upper arrow key a few times so the path will move upwards. Once done we will replicate the stroke path steps as described on step 7. This will create another swirl. Repeat this until you get the desired number of swirls.

9. Finally we want to give our swirls an angle. For this go back to the Layers mode, remember we were working on the paths mode until now, and select the swirls layer. Right click on it after you select it and select skew and give your swirls an angle by pulling the top right corner a bit up and the bottom left down, which will give them a cool moving effect.

You might be familiar of 3D graphics applications like 3D Studio Max, Maya, Xara 3D etc. These are used to create 3D Text, but they all have some drawbacks. These are complex 3D Softwares, so a normal user finds them difficult to use and navigate with ease. They also need to be procured and installed on your system separately. So why do you need them when you require are less? You can create nice looking 3D effects with Adobe Photoshop.

Although Photoshop is a 2D image editing tool, you can create text that looks like 3D with minimal expertise. In fact, this is exactly what we’re going to focus on and show you in this tutorial.

We will learn to write ‘Chocolate’ in real moulded chocolate. To kick things off, create a new file in Photoshop. We used 530 x 192 pixels for dimensions but this can of course be anything of your choice.

With the text tool, type the text you would like to work on. Select a font with a bold look, it looks better in 3D.

Using a transform mode (Ctrl + T) make the text slanting using the nodes. Use ctrl+drag on the nodes to adjust in perspective mode.

This layer will work as the front of your 3D Text, so now we must create an extruded look. To duplicate the layer, press Shift+Down Arrow to bring the new layer 10 pixels down.

Select the lower layer and press Ctrl+Alt+Up Arrow 9 times. It will create 9 new layers moving each layer up by 1 px. This gives our object a 3D depth look.

To differentiate the first layer and give it a more refined look, we will apply some effects to it. Open the layer effects on the first layer, check ‘Bevel and Emboss’. Use the following settings

Under Bevel and Emboss, also check Contour and use following value

Also give Drop Shadow effect with these values

Your image will now hopefully look something like this

Lets add a reflection effect. Select all the layers below the front text and merge them (Press Ctrl+E). Duplicate the merged layer and give the new layer 20% opacity. Bring down the transparent layer by pressing Shift + Down Arrow for 10 pixels. This will work as a reflection. There are many ways to add a reflection to your text; you can check other tutorials for more advanced reflections.

Almost Done, if you want, you can also add a gradient fill to the background for better presentation!

Might also be worth checking out the 80 best Photoshop Text Effects on the web.