How to make an embossed effect in Adobe Photoshop

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Designing with an embossed effect is a great way to highlight your creativity. In this short tutorial, see how award-winning artist and illustrator Lidia Lukianova raises her vector drawing using layer styles in Adobe Photoshop.

Lidia Lukianova is an artist and designer with a passion for illustration. Her primary approach is to use an iPad to create illustrations, lettering, and animation. 

What you'll need

Work in layers

Lukianova added a drawing of a tiger head as a new layer to a Photoshop document.

The Layers panel is open. A black tiger head line drawing is on the top layer and the background layer is light gray.

Make it transparent

In order to apply a layer style to her drawing, Lukianova set the Fill to 0 for the tiger layer.

The tiger layer fill is set to 0% in the Layers panel. The tiger head now appears slightly darker than the background layer.

Add some style

The emboss effect is a layer style, so Lukianova clicked the ‘fx’ icon in the Layers panel and chose Bevel & Emboss. You can also double-click a layer to open the Layer Style dialog box.

The fx icon in the Layers panel is selected, Bevel & Emboss layer style is highlighted.

Perfect the look

Lukianova experimented with the Bevel & Emboss settings until she was happy with the results. See the screenshot below for the adjustments she made.

The Layer style window is open with Bevel and Emboss settings selected. The tiger head now appears embossed.

Make it stand up and stand out

Add some three-dimensional flair to your designs.

A brown paper envelope with the embossed tiger head on a postcard sits on a marble table.

Note: Project files included with this tutorial are for practice purposes only.

08/14/2019

Artist: Lidia Lukianova

Adobe Stock Contributors: Oksana, ink drop
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