A few weeks ago, in my “3D Title” post I showed you how to create a 3D effect using the Halftone Filter in Photoshop Elements (PSE). Today I’m going to share another tip that will help you add interest to a title using the PSE Distort Wave Filter.

In my “Stitching Realism” post back on August 13, 2024, I showed you how to use that filter to warp a shadow. Today I’m going to show you how to use that same filter to “spike” a title.

Note: The featured image at the top of this post was created using a template from “No Worms Allowed” by Dawn Inskip (retired). You can find more details about this layout in my 2025 Gallery.

Spiked Title

This is another technique that works best on larger titles using a rather “bold” font. I’m not sure script fonts are a good idea for this technique but you’re welcome to give it a try.

Before I get started just a quick reminder that I use PSE 2024. If you use a different version, some of my screen shots may look different than what you see on your screen.

I’m going to create a new 12×12 file with a white background:

I then ensure that the foreground/background color chips are set to the default of black and white (press D).

Then I select the Horizontal Type tool. I’m using the Shiny Flower Regular font (from 1001Fonts) and I select that font in the Horizontal Type tool options. Then I set the font size to 240 pt, the Leading to Auto and the Tracking to 0 (zero).

I then double-check that the font Color chip is set to black, select the Center text option and check the Anti-aliasing box: 

Note: Very small titles won’t work well for this technique. Specifically, font sizes of less than 72 pt are too small for this. That’s why I wanted to start out making it fairly large. I should be able to make it smaller later.

Next, I place my cursor in about the center of the page and click once:

Right now, all you see is that black dot near the center of the page. That’s because I didn’t draw a text box. There’s really no need to create a text box if I’m only typing one word.

At this point all I have to do is type my title and click the check mark to confirm:

On to the fun part…

Spiky Layer

With my title all set, I duplicate the text layer (Ctrl+J) and rename the new layer Spiky Windy. I then move the Spiky Windy layer beneath the original text layer. And here’s how my Layers Panel looks right now:

As I mentioned in my “3D Title” post, some PSE filters use the foreground and background colors. That is not the case with the filter which I’ll be using today. The Distort Wave filter will create the effect using the color of the item being distorted. In this case, the “spikes” will be black

Note: If you’re following along, you can use a color other than black if you’d like.

Before I go further, I need to simplify the Spiky Windy layer. As I’ve mentioned before, PSE won’t let me apply a filter to text because it is a vector-based image (similar to a Smart Object). So, I Right-Click on the Spiky Windy layer’s thumbnail and click Simplify Layer:

Note: If you want more information about Smart Objects, you can refer back to my post about “Managing File Sizes“.

Next, I go to the top tool bar and select Filter->Distort->Wave:

PSE then opens the Wave filter options:

With the Wave options open I use the following settings:

• Type to Triangle
• Undefined Areas to Repeat Edge Pixels
• Number of Generators to 5
• Wavelength Minimum to 20 and the Wavelength Maximum to 21
• Amplitude Minimum to 20 and the Amplitude Maximum to 21
• Scale to 100% for both Horizontal and Vertical

I then Click OK to close the dialog box. Those settings will give me a fairly uniform set of spikes or waves all around the layer:

This looks nice but I want the spikes to be a bit more varied in size and a bit wavier. So, I’m going to change only the following settings:

• Number of Generators to 7
• Wavelength Minimum to 20
• Wavelength Maximum to 33
• Amplitude Minimum to 16
• Amplitude Maximum to 64

I then click OK to apply the filter and this is what my title looks like now:

I’m pretty happy with how this turned out. But let’s see what happens if I hide the original text layer:

That looks pretty cool. It kind of gives the impression of being windy. But I’m not sure that it’s very legible.

So now I’m going to unhide my original text and change the color:

I like how that turned out. I love how the spikes add visual interest to the title without making it too distracting.

Note: The size of the type or word art makes a difference in how this filter works. If you use a smaller-sized word, reduce the number of generators to maintain a similar look to the previous examples. You can play with the Wavelength and Amplitude numbers to change how the spikes look.

And that’s my word art with a spiky effect. I am going to save this first as a PSD file…just in case 😉. Next, I am going to hide/remove the white background layer, crop the image to size and save it as a PNG file for use later:

That concludes the basic steps to create this effect. But there are a few other things I want to share.

I would encourage you to play around with the Amplitude and Wavelength settings to see what kind of spike variations you can achieve. It’s also fun to change the colors of each layer and experiment with blend modes.

For example, this is what happens if I change the spike layer of my word art to a bright orange (#d85f08) under the brown text and set the Blend Mode on the text layer to Multiply:

I zoomed in fairly close hoping you’d be able to see that with this blending the orange spikes show through the brown text giving it an even more interesting look.

You can also play around with adding a slight PSE simple Emboss bevel (Lighting Angle set to 120 degrees and Size set to 15) on the text layer to enhance the title even more before saving the word art as a PNG.

And here’s my layout using my spiky title:

You can find more details about this layout in my 2025 Gallery.

I hope you have fun playing with this Spiky effect.

More Tips

One important note. Very small titles do not work well for this technique. If you try to use font sizes of less than 72 pt this technique will not work very well at all.

You can also try this technique on simple, flat word art that you may find in a kit. I caution you that complex multi-font word art will not work well with this technique.

When you create your spikes, they will be the same color as your text. But you can always re-color the spikes after they are generated. I would highly recommend when you re-color anything other than a text layer that you first click the “Lock transparent pixels” icon in the Layers Panel. I first talked about the importance of this in my “It’s All About The Mask” post back in October of 2023.

You can play with the Wavelength and Amplitude numbers to change how the spikes look.

In some instances, you may want to adjust the Tracking value of your title. If letters are too close together, the spikes can tend to overlap. But if you like the overlap…that’s fine too!

Experiment with re-coloring the layers. Try making the text (top) layer a medium color and the spiky (bottom) layer a lighter or darker color.

One easy way to re-color a layer is to use the keyboard shortcut of Shift+Alt+Backspace to fill any layer’s pixels with the foreground color. Again, be sure to lock transparent pixels first!

Don’t forget to play around with the Blend Mode and Opacity of the layer(s).

Other than that…just have fun experimenting with different colors for the text and spikes and changing the variation of the spikes.

Thanks for reading this week’s Tuesday Tip. Remember, if you have any suggestions or questions please don’t hesitate to “Message Me“. Check back next week with a tip about font glyphs! Click “Follow Me” to stay in touch. I hope you have a wonderful week!