Chrome effects text.

Chrome effects give your text a classy metallic embossed look, and can be used for many things, like cars (think car model at the back of a car), movie poster titles (think Spiderman), and much more.

Preparation:

The first step is to get your photograph ready in Photoshop. You can drag it into Photoshop or just go to File > Open > your photo.

This tutorial was done on Adobe Photoshop CS5. Other versions may vary slightly.

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Step 1

Open a new document at 13″ X 6″ (W X H), 300 pixels/inch settings.

Step 2

Select the Type Tool, choose a thick font, set it to medium gray, and type your desired text. My settings in the example are, Font: Enter Sansman (downloaded from dafont, check the links section), size 210 and italicized.

Step 3

Hold ctrl and click on the text layer icon (hold cmd if you’re on a mac). You should see an outline around the text. Then go to Menu Bar: Select > Save Selection. The Save Selection dialogue box will pop up, simply hit OK.

Step 4

Deselect your outline by pressing Ctrl+D (Cmd+D). Go to the Channels Palette and click on Alpha1 (that’s your saved selection). If you don’t see a Channels Palette, go to Menu Bar: Window > Channels.

Step 5

Go to Menu Bar: Filter > Blur > Gaussian Blur and set the radius to 10 pixels.

Step 6

Go back to the Layers Palette and click on the Background layer once to make it active. Then hide the text clicking on the eye icon.

Step 7

With the background layer selected, go to Menu Bar: Filter > Render > Lighting Effects. When the Lighting Effects dialogue box pops up, the only thing we need to change is right at the bottom, Texture Channel: Alpha 1. After that, hit OK.

Step 8

Go to Menu Bar: Image > Adjustments > Curves. Make the S-shaped curve like I did in the example, don’t worry it’s easy. Simply click on the line twice, but at different places, this will create 2 dots. Simply drag one dot to the bottom right and one to the top left. Hit OK when done.

Step 9

Go to Menu Bar: Select > Load Selection. The Load Selection dialogue box will pop up, Alpha 1 should already be chosen as your source by default. If not, then simply select it from the Channel menu. Hit OK.

Step 10

Go to Menu Bar: Select > Modify > Expand. Fill in 15 pixels. Hit OK. Then press Ctrl+J (Cmd+J).

Step 11

Now set the foreground to your desired background color. Then select the Background Layer, and press Alt+Backspace (Opt+Delete) to fill your background to the color you set, in this case, white.

Step 12

Right click on the design layer (called Layer 1 in the example) and “Duplicate Layer”. Set the Layer 1 copy blending mode to Color Burn.

And your cool chrome text is ready.