Glitch Type in the Douyin Style: Online PS Tutorial

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Four steps get you Douyin-style glitch type: build a canvas and type the words, tear the letters out of alignment, offset a coloured copy on top, then export a transparent PNG you can drop straight into a deck or a video. It is a fast way to make cover titles in Online PS.

Step 1: Set up the canvas

  1. Open Online PS (zaixianps.cc) and bring up the “New Project” dialog.

    Suggested size: 1920 px wide × 1080 px high (or any size you need), resolution 72 ppi, background contents set to White.

  2. Press D to reset the foreground colour (left) and background colour (right) to the default black and white.

  3. Press Alt + Delete (Windows) or Option + Delete (Mac) to fill the whole canvas with the foreground colour, which is black at this point.

If you would rather start from a white canvas, change the foreground colour to white first and then run Alt + Delete.

Step 2: Add the type

  1. Pick the Type tool (T), click in the middle of the canvas and type the words you want (for example “Douyin”).

  2. Hold Ctrl + Alt (Cmd + Option on Mac) and drag the type layer to make two copies.

    Give each copy a different fill colour (for example orange-red and cyan-blue) so the stack reads with more depth.

  3. Select the coloured type layer you want to move, hold Ctrl (Cmd on Mac) and drag it so the coloured text sits below the white text.

    If you are unsure of the order, just drag the layers around in the Layers panel — whichever layer is higher in the panel appears in front on the canvas.

Layer order in Online PS works exactly as it does in Photoshop: the higher a layer sits in the Layers panel, the further forward it appears on the canvas, and the more it covers the layers underneath.

Step 3: Distort the type (the “torn” glitch look)

  1. Select all three type layers (the white text plus the two coloured copies) together.
    Shortcut: click one layer, then Ctrl + Click (Cmd + Click on Mac) the others.

  2. Right-click the layer → Rasterize Type to turn the text into pixels.

    Then right-click again → Merge Layers to combine the three rasterized layers into one.

  3. Take the Rectangular Marquee tool (M) and draw around the part of the text you want to tear.

    Then hold Ctrl + Shift (the same on Mac) and drag the selection: this shifts that block of pixels and creates the displaced-shard look.

    Repeat several times, moving in different directions with slight offsets, until the glitch feels right.

For a finer glitch, push it further with “Edit → Transform → Warp” or “Edit → Transform → Perspective” to stretch and skew the fragments.

Step 4 (optional): Export a transparent PNG for slides

  1. Double-click the background layer (the locked “Background”), rename it to anything you like in the dialog, then click OK to unlock it.

    Next, click off the eye icon on the left of the background layer in the Layers panel to hide it.

  2. Choose File → Export As → PNG (or the shortcut Ctrl + Shift + Alt + S). In the “PNG Export” dialog, make sure Transparency is ticked, then click Save.

  3. Open PowerPoint (or Keynote) and insert the exported PNG on the slide you need. Because the alpha channel is preserved, the text floats naturally over any background.

If you only want to preview the result in Online PS, you can also save it as a PSD (File → Save As → PSD) and reopen it for further editing whenever you like.

Frequently asked questions (FAQ)

1. Why does the text look jagged after I move it?

Once type is rasterized it becomes a pixel layer, so moving it produces slightly jagged edges. Run “Edit → Offset” and then sharpen once more with “Filter → Sharpen → Unsharp Mask”, or scale the canvas up before exporting and back down afterwards.

2. What if the project file gets too large?

When all the steps are done, crop the canvas to the size you actually need (Image → Crop), then confirm the resolution is set to 72 ppi before exporting the PNG — the file size drops noticeably.

3. Is there a quicker way to glitch several lines of text at once?

Run the steps above on each line separately, put the layer group for each line into one parent folder, then select all the child layers at once and Rasterize + Merge, and finally tear the selection in a single pass.

4. What are the Mac equivalents for these shortcuts? 
Ctrl  →  Cmd (⌘)
Alt   →  Option (⌥)
Delete →  Backspace
Ctrl + Alt  →  Cmd + Option
Ctrl + Shift → Cmd + Shift

References

  • Online PS
  • Adobe official documentation
  • Photoshop tutorial sites
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