Design Magazine

Ok, ok, I know I’ve already written a tutorial or two on how to make a nice, golden text effect. But again, I’m going to write for you a tutorial on how to make a simple gold text effect by using some layer styles, namely the Gradient Overlay layer style!

I was inspired to do this tutorial after I saw an awesome bit of text on the David Letterman’s website, which you can view here. Props to the awesome David Letterman!

1. Setting the Stage

Ok, let’s start by making a new document in Photoshop. I created a new document sized 500 x 500 pixels with all the default settings, RGB, 72 DPI, etc.
After creating your document, fill the background with a color/gradient of your choice. In this case I used a radial gradient, colors were #393943 and #100e19.
I then added in a texture/pattern of some “Diamond Metal Plate,” I made this texture using the Free Filter Forge Metal Plugin, which you can download for free from their website.
If you don’t want to download their application and have to install it, you can simply download the pattern that I created from here: Diamond Plate Metal Texture/Pattern.

After adding your texture, mess with the layer mode and opacities settings to get an interesting look. I used the layer mode Overlay, with an opacity of 15%. Other good layer modes to use in this case are Soft Light, Vivid Light, and Color Dodge.

Looking alright so far? One or two more things to do for the background before we get onto the text though.
Create a new layer then get out the Rectangular Marquee Tool. Set the ‘style’ for the selection tool to ‘Fixed Size, then put 50% into each of the boxes, width and height.
Drag your selection onto the canvas then into the bottom right corner of your canvas, do the same but in the top left corner. Next, fill your selections with one of the purple colors that you used for your background gradient.

Lower the opacity for this layer if you think it needs it, then, using a large, soft brush, erase away the inside (middle area) of your cubes, so you get something like this:

Repeat this part, but using the other corners and the other color that you used for the background. After a little bit of tweaking, this is what I ended up with for my background:

If you were unable to complete the background, then don’t worry about it, you’ll be able to download the PSD file at the end of this tutorial anyway, so you’ll be able to take a look at all of the layers later.
To finish off with the background I added in a bit of grunge at the bottom of the document, using the lighter purple as my brush color, I then changed the layer mode to Multiply and lowered the layer opacity to around 40%.

Alright, we’re finally done for the background! I hope you enjoyed this part

2. Setting Up your Text

This is the easy part, all you have to do is write out your desired text on the canvas. Get out your Horizontal Type Tool (just the usual one) and write out your text in whatever color you want.

In the above image I’ve used Impact as my font of choice, and it’s sized at a meager 60 pt.
Impact should come with your Windows installation (assuming you’re using Windows, anyway) but if you don’t have it, you can easily find a good alternative on a free font website such as Dafont or UrbanFonts. It’s preferred to use a fat font, with a large font size.
I find Impact does a great job in this case, but if you’re not pleased with it, I’ve listed a few good, free alternative below.
Bebas:

Accidental Presidency:

Boris Black Boxx:

3. Style Your Text

Pretty much the final thing we need to do is apply layer styles to our text to make it actually look good. Some of these layer style settings will depend on the size of your text, so be sure to mess with the settings a little bit if you’ve selected your own font size!

1. Drop Shadow
2. Inner Shadow
3. Inner Glow
4. Gradient Overlay

And now our text should look like this:

Looks pretty good to me!

4. Completion

Well, we’re pretty much finished for this tutorial, thanks for taking the time to read it!