Engraved Gold Text

We’re going to create a text effect that will give us the impression of 3D engraved gold text. This effect looks nice on fairly large and semi-ornate text, so to start off with, I’m going to create a new image with a black background and put some 72pt sample text on it to work with. If y ou would like to follow along with the same font I’m using, you can download it here.

Adobe Photoshop Tutorial - Gold Text Fig. 1

Next, double-click on the layer in the Layers palette to bring up the Layer Styles menu. Go to Bevel & Emboss and change the size to 1. Leave everything else at their default values.

Adobe Photoshop Tutorial - Gold Text Fig. 2

Now let’s make it shine. Create a new layer (call it “gold 1″ and Alt+Click between the text layer and “gold 1″ in the Layers palette to group the two together.

On “gold 1,” grab your gradient tool and select the default copper gradient found in the “metals” gradient set. Create a gradient on the text by dragging diagonally from the top left to the bottom right of the canvas.

Adobe Photoshop Tutorial - Gold Text Fig. 3

Next go to Image- Adjust - Hue/Saturation and change the hue to +25 and the saturation to +100.

Adobe Photoshop Tutorial - Gold Text Fig. 4

Now we have the base layer for our gold text completed. Moving on , let’s make another new layer (call it “emboss 1″. Group it with the text layer just as you did the layer below it. Ctrl+Click on the original text layer, go to Select- Modify- Contract and input a value of 2. Take the gradient tool once more and fill the selection by dragging from the right side of the canvas to the left.

Adobe Photoshop Tutorial - Gold Text Fig. 5

Again, adjust the Hue/Saturation as we did above. Then double-click on the layer to bring up the Layer Styles window. We’re going to apply another bevel / emboss effect here. Again, change the default size to 1 and this time, change the direction to “Down.”

Adobe Photoshop Tutorial - Gold Text Fig. 6

Next, create another new layer (”emboss 2″ and group it with the text layer. Ctl+Click on “emboss 1″ to load its selection, then once more go to Select- Modify- Contract and contract the selection bhy 2px. take your gradient tool once more and again, drag from the top left of the text to the bottom right.

Adobe Photoshop Tutorial - Gold Text Fig. 7

Again, adjust hue-saturation as we ddi above and apply the same bevel / emboss effect to thhis layer that you did the original text layer. You also need to apply a drop-dhadow. The default value will be fine.
Adobe Photoshop Tutorial - Gold Text Fig. 8

Now we have some nice layered and engraved gold colored text, but what it really needs is a little bling. Create another new layer (”highlights”
, group it with the text layer and grab your gradient tool. This time, select one of the gold metal gradients. There are two by default, a light and a dark. Take your pick. Now drag from the top of the text to the bottom of the text. Set the layer mode to “Opacity” and the transparency to 60^.

Adobe Photoshop Tutorial - Gold Text Fig. 9
And last, but not least, create one final layer (”sparkle”. Don’t group it this time. Get out yoru paintbrush and select one of the starburst brushes, or one of the “x” brushes, whichever look you prefer. Set your foreground color to white and add a few sparkles here and there, where the highlights are strongest on the text.

Adobe Photoshop Tutorial - Gold Text Fig. 10

There we have the finished text. If you find that your edges are too rough on this and you would like to smooth them (which can happen with some fonts), you might want to experiment with different types of anti-aliasing on the original font layer, or you may also want to work at 2x the desired resolution and resample the image upon completion.

Added Thursday, May 25th, 2006 at 3:32 pm under Text Effects.