In this tutorial I will show you how easy is to create a simple yet effective metal text effect using just one text layer. The effect will be obtained using drop shadow, inner shadow, etc. Then we will save this style such that you can use it in the future for other works on layers, shapes and so on.
Choose a nice font, I use Cooper Std, black, 50px, strong. You will see that this text effect does not match with every font type, you will have to experiment. The color is not important, so simply use white.
Double click on the Text Layer name and open the Layer Styles window. In the Drop Shadow section I will make the following settings. Use the Blend Mode Multiply with color black and opacity 75%.
Add Inner Shadow, use again Blend mode Multiply, color of the shadow is black and the opacity is set to 28%.
For the Inner Glow use Screen as Blend Mode, color white opacity 20% and other setting presented in the image below:
A very important setting is the Bevel and Emboss. This will give the text a 3 dimensional look. You will see that almost every element is changed so be careful when you set it. So set Inner Bevel , Chisel Hard. Adjust the depth, size and angle, altitude, gloss contour. Set the Highlight Mode to screen, color white and the Shadow Mode to multiply, clor #2c3957.
I will now Add Gradient Overlay as a final touch using the following settings for the gradient: color #96a7b5, location 0%; color #626b77, location 30%; color #a3aab8, location 83% and color #626b77, location 100%. You can of course use another tones of blue and different locations.
After you set all the elements, Photoshop offers you a really nice feature. You can save all these settings in a style and use it later for other text, shapes, etc. So you can see in the Layer Style window, a button called New Style. So give your style a recognizable name, let's say Metal Effect. Pick the Custom Shape Tool and draw a shape. You will see that the Custom Shape Toolbar has an item called Styles that contains a lot of preset styles and of course our new saved style Metal Effect. Choose this style and you will see that the custom shape has now all the settings done in a single click. If the style option is not in the toolbar and you want to use it for another text or another layer, simply go to Windows menu and check Styles.
Let's say we want to save this style on our computer, to load it later, to publish it on a website for others to download it and use it. This thing is possible. Just go to Edit menu, choose Preset Manager, Preset Type : Styles. Select the style and click Save Set and give it a name, let's call it metal-effect.asl . A set can contain at least one but as the name says it can contain a set of styles. So this is the final result for Metal Text Effect: You can download metal-effect.asl here.
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