If you’ve come here from the video download my Gold Effect Style:
Layer Style or Layer Effect?
You can use both terms if you wish. I believe “Style” to be the correct term but even Adobe use both terms interchangeably.
Be aware that if you want to save this style or effect you’ll have to save it as a style.
One of the most important things is to make sure the type is large enough. It’s pointless doing this effect on a small size font.
Also, starting with black text will not allow you to see the Satin Style at work. That said, the colour of the text is not important otherwise as we are going to change the colour using the Gradient Overlay.
YouTube Video
Bevel and Emboss
This is the meat of the overall style.
You could if your font is large enough, just follow the screenshots below. The size of your font is very important though. The font size in my video was 915 px.
The three things that will have the most impact on the Bevel and Emboss are:
- Size
- Angle and Altitude
- Gloss Contour
I have raised the opacity of the Highlight mode and lowered the Shadow mode, just to help it along a bit. Keeping an eye on the little preview box can help a lot as you change the settings.
Contour
Contouring is part of the Bevel and Emboss style, and probably on its own section because it will not fit into the first panel.
Contour only affects the Bevel/Emboss.
The various contours in different areas of the Layer Style dialogue box all do different things. It’s important to be able to distinguish which contour does what.
With this contour, we are affecting how the travels over the surface of the bevel. The more hills and valleys of the contour, the more pronounced the effect. Be aware that too much contouring will lead to distortion of the text.
Satin
Probably the hardest one to control, or even explain.
Satin will add a satin effect to the whole of the object as opposed to just the bevel. Up to now, we have been working on the bevel, we are now working on the object as a whole – i.e. the whole character/word.
As mentioned earlier using black type makes viewing the satin effect almost impossible. With a mid-tone colour, you should be ok, try to avoid very dark colours.
Satin can be controlled by moving your cursor into the document window where you will see the cursor change to show a move icon. Dragging around in the document will change the Distance and Angle.
Be aware that now we are adding another contour, we have the opportunity to add too much contouring thereby ruining the effect by adding too much complexity.
Gradient Overlay
We could just add a Colour Overlay, it works ok. A Gradient Overlay will make it look more authentic.
Luckily Photoshop comes with some Metal Styles all ready to use.
Click the drop-down arrow at the right-hand side of the gradient. Then click on the Cog Symbol and Choose Metals, then pick Gold.
Like the Satin effect, you can drag around in the document window to move the Gradient around.
What I recommend doing is this.
Go to Blend Options 2nd down on Style list and untick Transparency Shapes Layer.
This will allow you to see the Gradient in isolation.
The next screenshot shows a Radial Overlay without Transparency Shapes Layer ticked.
You can drag the gradient around in the Document Window if you wish.
Obviously, you will have to tick ‘Transparency Shapes Layer’ again to see the effect. But, this is a great way of showing what is actually taking place with the Gradient OverlY.
You can add a Drop Shadow, not absolutely necessary but it can help especially when the text is on a light background.
That’s it. Playing around with Layer Styles will deliver great rewards on your Photoshop learning journey.
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