CREATING
TYPE
Your personal step-by-step
guide to creating metallic type in Photoshop....
Create
a new RGB Photoshop document with a white background. Make the
foreground color 50‰ black and type in a word or two with the text
tool. Use a nice PostScript serif font with fat letters (we used Bodoni)
and set the Anti-Alias to smooth.
With
the type tool still active, select Layer >Effects >Bevel and
Emboss. Select Inner Bevel for Style and click OK.
With
the Layers palette open, change the text layer from Normal to Hard
Light.
Hold
down the Command (Mac) or Control (Windows) key. In the
Layers palette click on the text layer. You should see the marching ants
around the letters. This loads the transparency mask for that layer. Choose
Select >Save Selection. Name this new alpha channel “Type.”
Click OK.
With
the selection still active, create a new layer for the color. Name this
new layer Color. Put it under the text layer.
Change
the foreground color to Red 220, Green 185 and Blue 0. Click OK. With
the selection still active and the Color layer selected in the Layers
palette, select Edit > Fill and use the Foreground Color. Your
text will change color (make sure Preserve Transparency is not checked).
Choose
Select >Deselect. Then in the Layers palette, select
the type layer. Change the mode from Hard Light to Luminosity.
With
the type layer selected in the Layers palette, choose Merge
Down from the popup menu.
In
the Channels palette, click on the Type channel. Select Filter
>Blur >Gaussian Blur. Set it at around 4 pixels. This will soften
the image. Click OK. In the Channels palette, select RGB.
In the Layers palette, make sure the Color layer is selected.
Choose
Filter > Render > Lighting Effects. Select the 2 o'clock Spotlight
filter under Style (it comes packaged with Photoshop). Under
Texture Channel, select Type. That is the alpha channel
you created. Click OK.