First let’s appreciate the final effect:
1. Create a new document in photoshop, set the size to 900*600 and the resolution to 300. Fill the background with a darker color (#332222 is used here, readers can try their favorite hue). Use white as the foreground color and enter the text “AWESOME”. Readers can choose their favorite font, size and style according to the size of the canvas and style preferences.
2. First create a surface reflection for the metal words: Create a new layer (Ctrl+Shift+Alt+N), name it “Metal”, and fill it with 90% gray. Use the lens flare filter that comes with Photoshop in the menu: Filter > Render > Lens Light. The settings of this filter are very simple, you can explore it yourself, or refer to the settings in the picture below. Hold down the Alt key and place the mouse between the metal layer and the text layer. The cursor as shown below will appear. After clicking, the text will be used as a mask for the metal layer, so that the surface texture of simple metal characters will appear. .
3. The mixed layer mode in PHTOSHOP is a very powerful tool that can add shadow and highlight effects to metal characters. Select the text layer and double-click to enter the mixed layer mode.
Shadow: Select Drop Shadow and set the blending mode to Multiply, which will make the shadow darker. You can control the transparency yourself, this article sets it to 75%. The direction is set to 90, which simulates the effect of overhead lighting. The distance and size can be adjusted as needed. The distance controls the displacement of the shadow, and the size controls the softness of the shadow.
Highlight: Apply a bevel relief effect, set the style to the default inner bevel, and control the depth of the three-dimensionality, here set to 100%. The distance and size work the same as the shadow part. Here they are set to 0, so that you can get a sharp chamfer effect. The direction is the same as the shadow, also set to 90. What needs to be explained is the height. Adjusting the height value can increase or decrease the three-dimensional effect of the metal characters. Here, it is set to 65 to strengthen the effect and make the chamfered highlights brighter.
4. Next, add some lighting to the background to make the effect more realistic. Select the background and apply the lens flare filter as well. You can use the shortcut keys Alt+Ctrl+F to bring up the last used filter and adjust the brightness value. Here it is set to 100. Next, add a blur effect using the Gaussian blur filter that comes with Photoshop. Go to the menu Filter > Blur > Gaussian Blur, and adjust the radius yourself based on the actual effect of the image.
5. Now that the general effect of the metal characters has come out, it still looks a bit flat and lacks three-dimensionality. At this time, you can add radial shadows to enhance the real effect. This step is a little complicated because another powerful PHTOSHOP is used. Tools: Actions to simplify operations. The principle is not difficult to understand, it is to manually create a shadow layer and combine it with a radial blur filter. Here are the detailed steps:
Create a new shadow layer
Create a new layer on top of the background layer and name it “shadow”. Hold down the Ctrl key and click on the metal word layer to get a text selection. Select the shadow layer and fill it with black.
6. Go to Image > Canvas Size, set as shown below, set the height to 1600, cancel relative, and set the arrow to offset upward. Next, create a centered guide line: select the background layer, pull a vertical guide line, and turn on Photoshop’s snap function (View > Snap). The guide line will snap to the middle of the canvas. Then center the metal words and shadow layer according to the guide lines.
7. Create a new action in Window>Action and name it according to your needs. The following are the recording steps (please refer to the picture to understand):
Duplicate the shadow layer (Ctrl+J).
Select the copied layer, enter Free Transform mode (Ctrl+T), pull the center point to the top of the canvas, and scale the layer horizontally and vertically to 100.2%.
In the action panel, press the stop button to end recording.
8. Select the shadow layer, select the action you just created in the action panel, and press the play button a dozen times. This way you will get a dozen incrementally offset layers, and merge them into one layer.
9. Now you have a downward shadow, but it is not soft and realistic enough. You can use Photoshop’s radial blur filter to improve it. Select: Filter > Blur > Radial Blur. Select zoom as the blur method, and the amount controls the degree of blur. Readers should make corresponding adjustments according to their own file size. As shown in the red mark in the picture, the center point should be moved to the top.
10. Select the shadow layer, enter the free transformation mode (Ctrl+T), pull the center point above the canvas, and perform displacement and vertical scaling as needed. After completion, a Gaussian blur is finally applied. The radius value should be set by the reader according to actual needs. This completes a super cool Photoshop metal word effect.
Final effect:
First let’s appreciate the final effect:
1. Create a new document in photoshop, set the size to 900*600 and the resolution to 300. Fill the background with a darker color (#332222 is used here, readers can try their favorite hue). Use white as the foreground color and enter the text “AWESOME”. Readers can choose their favorite font, size and style according to the size of the canvas and style preferences.
2. First create a surface reflection for the metal words: Create a new layer (Ctrl+Shift+Alt+N), name it “Metal”, and fill it with 90% gray. Use the lens flare filter that comes with Photoshop in the menu: Filter > Render > Lens Light. The settings of this filter are very simple, you can explore it yourself, or refer to the settings in the picture below. Hold down the Alt key and place the mouse between the metal layer and the text layer. The cursor as shown below will appear. After clicking, the text will be used as a mask for the metal layer, so that the surface texture of simple metal characters will appear. .
3. The mixed layer mode in PHTOSHOP is a very powerful tool that can add shadow and highlight effects to metal characters. Select the text layer and double-click to enter the mixed layer mode.
Shadow: Select Drop Shadow and set the blending mode to Multiply, which will make the shadow darker. You can control the transparency yourself, this article sets it to 75%. The direction is set to 90, which simulates the effect of overhead lighting. The distance and size can be adjusted as needed. The distance controls the displacement of the shadow, and the size controls the softness of the shadow.
Highlight: Apply a bevel relief effect, set the style to the default inner bevel, and control the depth of the three-dimensionality, here set to 100%. The distance and size work the same as the shadow part. Here they are set to 0, so that you can get a sharp chamfer effect. The direction is the same as the shadow, also set to 90. What needs to be explained is the height. Adjusting the height value can increase or decrease the three-dimensional effect of the metal characters. Here, it is set to 65 to strengthen the effect and make the chamfered highlights brighter.
4. Next, add some lighting to the background to make the effect more realistic. Select the background and apply the lens flare filter as well. You can use the shortcut keys Alt+Ctrl+F to bring up the last used filter and adjust the brightness value. Here it is set to 100. Next, add a blur effect using the Gaussian blur filter that comes with Photoshop. Go to the menu Filter > Blur > Gaussian Blur, and adjust the radius yourself based on the actual effect of the image.
5. Now that the general effect of the metal characters has come out, it still looks a bit flat and lacks three-dimensionality. At this time, you can add radial shadows to enhance the real effect. This step is a little complicated because another powerful PHTOSHOP is used. Tools: Actions to simplify operations. The principle is not difficult to understand. It is to manually create a shadow layer and combine it withA filter that blurs the direction. Here are the detailed steps:
Create a new shadow layer
Create a new layer on top of the background layer and name it “shadow”. Hold down the Ctrl key and click on the metal word layer to get a text selection. Select the shadow layer and fill it with black.
6. Go to Image > Canvas Size, set as shown below, set the height to 1600, cancel relative, and set the arrow to offset upward. Next, create a centered guide line: select the background layer, pull a vertical guide line, and turn on Photoshop’s snap function (View > Snap). The guide line will snap to the middle of the canvas. Then center the metal words and shadow layer according to the guide lines.
7. Create a new action in Window>Action and name it according to your needs. The following are the recording steps (please refer to the picture to understand):
Duplicate the shadow layer (Ctrl+J).
Select the copied layer, enter Free Transform mode (Ctrl+T), pull the center point to the top of the canvas, and scale the layer horizontally and vertically to 100.2%.
In the action panel, press the stop button to end recording.
8. Select the shadow layer, select the action you just created in the action panel, and press the play button a dozen times. This way you will get a dozen incrementally offset layers, and merge them into one layer.
9. Now you have a downward shadow, but it is not soft and realistic enough. You can use Photoshop’s radial blur filter to improve it. Select: Filter > Blur > Radial Blur. Select zoom as the blur method, and the amount controls the degree of blur. Readers should make corresponding adjustments according to their own file size. As shown in the red mark in the picture, the center point should be moved to the top.
10. Select the shadow layer, enter the free transformation mode (Ctrl+T), pull the center point above the canvas, and perform displacement and vertical scaling as needed. After completion, a Gaussian blur is finally applied. The radius value should be set by the reader according to actual needs. This completes a super cool Photoshop metal word effect.
Final effect: