Instant Chrome Effect - Mr. Wills



Instant Chrome Effect

Here's one of the easiest and quickest ways to create a metallic chrome effect. Don't worry if you've never used curves before. Although they play a major role in this effect, you're only in curves for a few seconds and the step is simple.

STEP ONE: Open a new document, 500px x 250px, 72 dpi, in RGB mode. Click on the Type tool and create some text. Make sure the text is large and bold. Hold the Control key and click once on your Type layer (the picture not the text) in the Layers palette to put a selection around your text. Go under the Select menu and choose Save Selection. When the dialog appears, click OK. Press Control-D to deselect. Now, delete your Type layer by dragging it into the trash can at the bottom of the Layers palette.

STEP TWO: Go to the Channels palette (under the Window menu, choose Show Channels) and click on Alpha 1. Next, go under the Filter menu, under Blur, and choose Gaussian Blur. Enter 1 pixel and click OK. (Note: The 1-pixel setting is for 72- ppi images. High-res images will require a 2-or 3-pixel blur. The more blur, the wider the bevel.)

STEP THREE: Return to the Layers palette and double click on the Background layer (the layer will go blank and a dialog box will appear, but just click cancel and continue.). Then go under the Filter menu, under Render, and choose Lighting Effects. When this dialog box appears, you only have to make one small change. At the bottom of the palette, where you choose the Texture Channel, choose Alpha 1 from the pop-up menu, then click OK.

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STEP FOUR: Your background layer should now look like the image above. Press Control-A to select the entire background layer.

STEP FIVE: Press Shift-Control-J to put this entire image on its own layer. Go under the Image menu, under Adjustments, and choose Curves. Create a curve that looks like the one above by clicking on the lower left-hand side of the curve and dragging upward. Release the mouse button, then click on the right-hand side and drag downward. As you drag the second point downward, you’ll see the chrome effect start to appear. When your curves look somewhat similar to the one shown above, click OK.

STEP SIX: Go under the Select menu and choose Load Selection. When the dialog box appears, make sure Alpha 1 is chosen under the Channel pop-up menu, and then click OK. This reloads a selection around your type, but you’ll notice it’s too small to encompass the entire beveled type.

STEP SEVEN: Go under the Select menu, under Modify, and choose Expand. This is the only slightly tricky part: you’ve got to guess how many pixels we need to expand so that it selects all of the text. In this case we chose 3 pixels (if 3 isn’t correct, choose Undo and try a higher or lower number). When the text is selected, press Shift-Control-I to inverse and press Backspace to remove the background.

STEP EIGHT: Press Control-D to deselect. Add a soft drop shadow by choosing Drop Shadow from the Layer Style pop-up menu at the bottom of the Layers palette (it s the one with the little icon). That completes the metallic effect, but you can continue on to Steps Nine and Ten on the next page if you want to add a brushed metal background behind your type.

QUICK TIP: If you click on the Fore-ground color swatch and your Color Picker doesn't look like the one shown here, you might have inadvertently switched your Color Picker. Press Control-K to bring up Photoshop's General Preferences dialog. Under the Color Picker pop-up menu, make sure the chosen picker is "Adobe." (Note: in previous versions of Photoshop, the chosen picker was called "Photoshop.")

STEP NINE: Click on the Background layer, then click on the Foreground color swatch (at the bottom of the Toolbox) to bring up the Color Picker. In the CMYK portion of the box, change the R, G, and B numbers to 153. Click OK to change your foreground color to 40% gray.

STEP TEN: Press Alt-Backspace to fill with 40% gray. Go to the Filter menu, under Noise, and choose Add Noise. Choose between 20 and 30 pixels of Gaussian, Monochromatic noise and click OK. Go under the Filter menu again, under Blur, and choose Motion Blur. Choose a distance between 20 and 30 pixels and set your angle to 30°. Click OK to complete the brushed metal-looking background.

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