Locked lesson.
About this lesson
The metallic look of this text style can be useful in a number of contexts. Particularly in the auto industry, a slick metallic look and feel to both text and design elements can appeal to the viewer’s inner rev head.
Exercise files
Download the Photoshop file used in the video tutorial and try the lesson yourself.
Iron Man Text Effect.psd48.7 MB
Quick reference
Topic
Create a slick Iron Man style of text.
When to use
The metallic look of this text style can be useful in a number of contexts. Particularly in the auto industry, a slick metallic look and feel to both text and design elements can appeal to the viewer’s inner rev head.
Instructions
Setting up the document
- Document size: 1920 by 1080
- Import Dark Grungy Texture: Opacity 30%, Blend Mode: Hard light
- Add text: use thick font and large (235 pixels), Color: 25 11 03
- Duplicate (Command- or Control-G)
Top text layer style
- Gradient Overlay: Gradient Color Left: 54 13 13, Gradient Color Right: 26 04 04,
- Bevel And Emboss: Depth: 300, Direction: Up, Size: 13, Style: Inner Bevel, Technique: Chisel Hard
- Bevel And Emboss Shading: Angle: 120, Distance: 50, Highlight Mode: Color Burn, Shadow Mode: Screen, Highlight Opacity: 70%, Shadow Opacity: Color: ff cb 87, Gloss Contour: Rounded Steps, Anti-Alias: On, Range: 35%
Bottom text layer style
- Drag to top
- Drop Shadow: Blend Mode: Multiply, Opacity: 100%, Size: 20, Angle: 90, Distance: 5
Add some texture and finishing touches
- Import Scratchy Texture
- Create selection from text layer and add Selection Mask to the new texture
- Change Blend Mode to Soft Light, Opacity: 60%
- Create new layer
- Use large soft brush to create a white highlight: change Blend Mode to Overlay
Add shine to text
- Create new layer and fill with white
- Create selection from text layer and add Selection Mask to the new layer
- Paint mask with gradient tool (white to black) to adjust highlight fade
- Change to Overlay and adjust Opacity.
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- 00:05 So, today we're going to be making an Iron Man inspired text effect in
- 00:08 Photoshop. Let's get started.
- 00:09 Starting off with the size of my document, I usually start around
- 00:13 1280 by 720,
- 00:15 but as I might want to use this design for a wallpaper in the future,
- 00:19 I'm going to start big this time - I'm going to go for 1920 by 1080, full HD for this design.
- 00:23 Of course, you can start it any size that you like, but
- 00:28 keep in mind if you choose to start at a smaller size,
- 00:31 you may have to adjust the layer styles as we're going through this video.
- 00:34 Good. So now that the document is ready to go, you can either fill the background
- 00:39 with completely black,
- 00:40 or we can use a dark texture. I'm going to go ahead and grab this texture here,
- 00:44 which I found over at Shutterstock.com,
- 00:46 and simply reduce the opacity to around 30%, and change the blend mode to
- 00:50 hard light.
- 00:51 That will give it a really nice effect against the black background. If you
- 00:55 don't have a subscription to Shutterstock,
- 00:57 you can always go to websites like CGtextures.com. They have a nice
- 01:00 selection of free textures that you can use.
- 01:02 OK, so now that the background is in place, let's move on to the text.
- 01:22 Of course, you can use any font that you wish, but a nice
- 01:25 thick font usually works best for these types of designs. Now, there are going to be
- 01:30 two text layers that make up this design. One for the foreground and one which
- 01:34 will give the text a little bit of depth.
- 01:36 Both will be the exact same size and shape. Because I'm working with a really
- 01:40 large document, I also want to work with the really large font.
- 01:44 So I'll use around 235, and I'm going to type out my word of choice right in the
- 01:49 center of the document.
- 01:50 To make things simple, I'll use 'Iron Man'. Now, as for the color of
- 01:55 the text, which you could set either before or after you typed it out,
- 01:58 I'm going to be using a very dark red: the values are going to be 25 11 03.
- 02:02 This will actually act as the background text, the text that will give
- 02:08 the text some
- 02:08 depth, but we'll get to that in a moment. So now that we have our first type layer
- 02:12 created,
- 02:13 you're going to want to perform a simple duplication - this will leave you with
- 02:17 two identical layers right on top of each other. You can easily do this with
- 02:21 the Command or Control
- 02:22 G shortcut - Command on the Mac, Control on Windows.
- 02:26 Good, and as you can see on your layers panel on the right, we have two of the
- 02:29 exact same layers.
- 02:31 And for the top layer, we now want to go in and add some layer styles. You can easily
- 02:35 do that by
- 02:36 double clicking on the layer to bring up the layer styles dialogue box.
- 02:39 We're going to start with a gradient overlay. Once you're in the gradient overlay
- 02:43 section, we're not going to worry about any of the settings right here,
- 02:46 we're going to click on the gradient bar to bring up the gradient editor,
- 02:49 so we can edit the colors. Now, the color on the left is going to be a little bit
- 02:53 lighter red -
- 02:54 I'll use the value 54 13 13.
- 02:57 Now, the color on the right will be quite a bit darker -
- 03:01 the value I'll use is 26 04 04
- 03:05 Perfect, now that the gradient is finished, we're going to hop into the bevel
- 03:11 and emboss section.
- 03:12 This will give us a nice outline around our text. We're going to keep the style at
- 03:16 inner bevel, but I'll change the technique to ‘chisel hard’.
- 03:20 I'll set the depth at 300, keep the direction at up
- 03:24 and increase the size to 13. Now, again, I will mention that if you're using a
- 03:29 larger or smaller font,
- 03:30 you will have to tweak the settings to get the result that you are looking for.
- 03:34 Now, down below under shading, I'll keep the angle at 120,
- 03:38 but I'll increase the altitude to around fifty degrees,
- 03:41 and I also want to turn on anti-alias, as this will ensure that the
- 03:45 edges over the text are nice and smooth, and not sharp.
- 03:48 Finally, we're going to make some changes to the highlight and shadow mode.
- 03:51 We are going to switch it up a little bit. For the highlight mode, I'm going to set the
- 03:55 blend mode at color burn,
- 03:56 and set the color to a dark brown. The value is going to be 51 33 1d.
- 04:01 The opacity can stay at 75%.
- 04:06 Now, for the shadow mode, I'll set the blend mode at screen,
- 04:09 and use a nice peach color: FF CB 87.
- 04:16 Perfect. The last thing we're going to add is a contour to our bevel.
- 04:20 Right on the left hand side, we can add a contour, and when we click on the contour picker
- 04:24 I'll add the rounded steps contour. And based on your personal preference, you
- 04:29 can decrease the range if necessary.
- 04:31 I'm going to bump it down to around 35%. Perfect. So those layer styles gave it a
- 04:35 really nice border around our text, but there is still a little bit to work to be
- 04:38 done.
- 04:39 Let's go ahead and hop down a layer to our original type layer.
- 04:43 This one's going to be simple. First off, it needs to be revealed.
- 04:46 Right now, it’s hiding behind the top layer that we just worked on.
- 04:49 If you still have the top layer selected, simply move upwards until the bottom
- 04:53 layer is poking out from the bottom.
- 04:54 If the bottom layer selected just move it down.
- 04:58 And depending on the color the background, it may be a little bit difficult to see this,
- 05:01 text,
- 05:02 so you either can change the color of the text, or add a drop shadow.
- 05:06 Let's go ahead and add a drop shadow. I'll double click on that layer to open up
- 05:09 the layer styles dialogue box,
- 05:11 and select the drop shadow option. In here, I'll keep the blend mode to
- 05:15 multiply,
- 05:15 but I'll increase the opacity all the way up to 100%.
- 05:19 Set the angle at 90 degrees, set the distance at five
- 05:24 and increase the size to around 20. That will give you a nice drop shadow that
- 05:28 pulls our design away from the background just a little bit.
- 05:32 Good. So now that we have the text completed, let's move on to the textures,
- 05:35 to really bring this design home.
- 05:37 For a design like this, scratched metal texture is going to work great.
- 05:41 Again, I'll be using a texture I found on Shutterstock.com.
- 05:45 Now, when you have your texture opened in Photoshop, you can simply drag it up to
- 05:49 the tab at the top,
- 05:50 hold it there for a second and then drop it right on top of your document.
- 05:53 And if you have to, you can always resize it to fit over the text.
- 05:57 So now the texture is in place, we need to create a layer mask
- 06:01 to hide everything outside the text. In the layers panel, hold down the Command key
- 06:05 on the Mac,
- 06:06 Control key in Windows, and click on the top type layer's
- 06:09 thumbnail. This will turn that top type layer into a selection.
- 06:13 And then, once the selection has been made, click on the ‘add layer mask’ icon at the
- 06:17 bottom of the layers panel,
- 06:19 to hide everything outside of that selection. Good, now obviously we're not
- 06:22 going to keep it like this - we need to blend it with the text a little bit.
- 06:26 To do this, you can change the blend mode of that text earlier to soft light,
- 06:30 and then decrease the opacity as needed. I'm going to set it around 60%.
- 06:34 Now, for texture that is lighter or darker, you may want to experiment with the other
- 06:38 blend modes that are available,
- 06:39 to get the best blend. Good. That's looking a lot better.
- 06:43 Let's go ahead and add a few finishing touches to really finalize this design.
- 06:47 I’ll start with a single spotlight at the top of this design.
- 06:51 As you don't want to mess up your texture layer, and you can't brush in a
- 06:53 type layer,
- 06:54 you want to make sure to create a new layer in the layers panel specifically
- 06:57 for this light.
- 06:59 Now, once a new lawyer has been created, go ahead and grab your brush tool with
- 07:02 the B key on your keyboard
- 07:04 and make sure your color is set to white. Once that's done,
- 07:08 right-click anywhere in the document to bring up the brush picker, and make sure
- 07:11 you have a very soft,
- 07:13 large brush. Anytime you want to increase the size of that brush without
- 07:17 bringing up the brush picker,
- 07:18 you can always use the right square bracket key on your keyboard.
- 07:21 Once you have a nice size brush, simply click once on your document to
- 07:25 create that light.
- 07:27 Now to finish it off, back in your layers panel, change the blend modes to
- 07:30 either soft light or overlay.
- 07:31 Good. We're going to add one more element to finish off this design.
- 07:35 We're going to add a shine on top of the text. Back in the layers panel, go ahead and
- 07:40 create another new layer, right on top of your text layer,
- 07:43 and then turn that type layer into a selection - just like you did before:
- 07:46 Command or Control and click on the type layer's thumbnail.
- 07:50 Now, once that selection has been made, you want to fill it with white.
- 07:53 A quick way to do this is to press the D key on your keyboard to set your default
- 07:57 colors:
- 07:57 black will be the foreground color and white will be the background color.
- 08:01 And then, you can use Command-Delete on the Mac, or Control-Backspace on Windows,
- 08:05 to fill your selection with the background color, which happens to be
- 08:08 white.
- 08:09 And then once that's done, Command or Control 'D' will deselect your selection.
- 08:14 Now, you need to decide which part of the shine layer you want visible.
- 08:17 With your selection method of choice active, in this case I need the polygonal
- 08:21 lasso tool,
- 08:22 you want to box out what you want to keep. I'll select the diagonal area at the
- 08:26 top portion of my text.
- 08:29 And when that selection is complete, go ahead and click the ‘add layer mask’ icon
- 08:32 in your layers panel
- 08:33 to hide the area outside the selection.
- 08:36 Good, now if you want the shine to fade off towards the left or the right,
- 08:40 you can use a ‘black to transparent’ gradient on the layer mask to do so.
- 08:44 Go and grab your gradient tool from the Tools bar on the left,
- 08:48 and then at the top choose the 'foreground to transparent' gradient.
- 08:52 Then drag on the gradient from the end that you want the shine to be transparent
- 08:55 to the end you want visible. Now, if you find yourself in a situation where black
- 09:00 covers the whole entire document,
- 09:02 make sure that the layer mask a selected in your layers panel.
- 09:05 And finally, once your layer mask has been finalized, go ahead and set the
- 09:08 blend mode of that layer to soft light
- 09:11 and decrease the opacity as needed. And that should do it: your
- 09:15 own Iron Man text in Photoshop.
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