Photoshop Gold Text Effect

Well hi everyone, Steve Patterson here once again from PhotoshopEssentials.com. In this video, I'll show you how to easily turn type into gold with Photoshop. To create the effect, we'll use Photoshop's Layer Styles, and we'll create our own custom gold colored gradient. We'll even add a few sparkles to the text using one of Photoshop's brushes to make our gold letters really shine. I'll be using Photoshop CC, but every step is fully compatible with Photoshop CS6 and with earlier versions of Photoshop. Be sure to check out this tutorial on our website where you'll also find my complete written version. Thanks for joining me and let's get started! We'll start by creating a new Photoshop document. Go up to the File menu in the menu bar along the top of the screen and choose New. This opens the New Document dialog box. If you're using Photoshop CC, you'll see this redesigned version of the dialog box, and if you're using CS6 or earlier, you'll see the original version. For this tutorial, let's set the Width of our document to 1600 pixels and the Height to 800 pixels. Set the Resolution to 72 pixels per inch. Then in Photoshop CC, click the Create button. In CS6 and earlier, click OK. The new document appears on the screen. To help our gold text really stand out, let's change the background color of the document to black. To do that, we'll use Photoshop's Fill command. Go up to the Edit menu in the menu bar and choose Fill. In the Fill dialog box, set the Contents option at the top to Black. Make sure that Mode is set to Normal and Opacity is at 100%. Click OK, and Photoshop fills the document with black. Next, let's add some type. Select the Type tool from the toolbar. Then choose your font in the Options bar. I'll keep things simple and use Times New Roman. And I'll set the Style to Bold. Set the Type Size to 72 points. We'll resize the type once we've added it, but this will give us the largest preset size for now. Since our background is black, let's set our Type Color to White just to make it easier to see. To change the type color, click on the Color Swatch. This opens the Color Picker. Choose white by setting the R, G, and B values, which stand for Red, Green, and Blue, each to 255. Then, click OK to close the Color Picker. Click inside the document and add your text. I'll type the word Gold. To accept it, click the checkmark in the Options bar. Well, now that we've added our text, let's resize it. We can do that using Photoshop's Free Transform command. Go up to the Edit menu in the menu bar and choose Free Transform. This places the Free Transform box and handles around the text. To resize it, press and hold the Shift key on your keyboard and drag any of the corner handles. The Shift key locks in the original aspect ratio of the letters so you don't distort them as you're resizing the text. When you're done, release your mouse button and then release your Shift key. To center the text, click inside the Free Transform box and drag the text into position. Then, click the checkmark in the Options bar to accept it. If we look in the Layers panel, we see that we now have two layers. The black background is on the background layer, and our text is on a separate type layer above it. We need to make a copy of our text. Click on the type layer and drag it down onto the New Layer icon at the bottom of the Layers panel. Release your mouse button, and Photoshop makes a copy of the type layer, names it Gold Copy, and places it above the original. To turn our text into gold, we'll use Photoshop's Layer Styles. Click on the Layer Styles icon at the bottom of the Layers panel. Then choose Gradient Overlay from the list. Photoshop opens the Layer Style dialog box with the Gradient Overlay options in the middle column. By default, the Gradient Overlay uses either a gray-to-white gradient or a black-to-white gradient, depending on which version of Photoshop you're using. Either way, we need to edit the gradient and choose colors that look more golden. To edit the gradient, click on the Preview bar. This opens the Gradient Editor. You'll find a larger Preview bar in the lower half of the dialog box. Let's start by changing the color on the left. Double-click on the color stop below the left side of the gradient. This again opens the Color Picker. I've sampled some colors from a photo of a gold coin, so to use the same colors, set the R value to 246, the G value to 238, and the B value to 173. Click OK to close the Color Picker. Back in the Gradient Editor, double-click on the color stop below the right side of the gradient. In the Color Picker, set the R value to 193, the G value to 172, and the B value to 81. Then click OK. And here we see our new gradient. We'll need this gradient again, so let's save it. Enter a name for the gradient. I'll name mine Gold. Then click the New button to save it. The gradient appears as a thumbnail in the Presets area, so we can quickly select it again the next time we need it. Click OK to close the Gradient Editor. In the Layer Style dialog box, change the style of the gradient from Linear to Reflected. This moves the darker gold color to the top and bottom of the letters, leaving the lighter color passing through the middle. If you look along the left of the Layer Style dialog box, you'll see a list of all the layer styles we can choose from. Click on the words Bevel & Emboss. Then in the Options for Bevel & Emboss, change the Technique from Smooth to Chisel Hard. Down in the Shading section, look for the Gloss Contour option and click on the small arrow beside the thumbnail. Choose the Ring Double Contour by double-clicking on its thumbnail. Set the Angle to 120 degrees. And then, to smooth out any jagged edges, turn on the Anti-Alias option by clicking inside its checkbox. Set the Opacity for both the Highlight Mode and the Shadow Mode to 75%. Notice that the text looks like it has a stroke around it. Let's fill up the space inside the letters by increasing the Size value. The easiest way to do that is to click inside the Size Value box to make it active. Then use the Up arrow key on your keyboard to increase the value. As you do, you'll see the letters filling in from the outer edges towards the centers. Continue increasing the size until the letters are filled in completely. Next, set the Depth to around 170%. This enhances the lighting effect and adds more contrast. We have one more layer style to add before closing out of the dialog box. Click on the words Inner Glow on the left. Then in the Inner Glow options, change the Blend Mode from Screen to Multiply and set the Opacity to 50%. Change the color of the glow by clicking on the Color Swatch. In the Color Picker, set the R value to 232, the G value to 128, and the B value to 31. Click OK to close the Color Picker. Finally, increase the size of the glow until it completely covers the letters. When you're done, click OK to close the Layer Style dialog box. In the Layers panel, click on the original type layer to select it. Then click on the Layer Styles icon at the bottom of the Layers panel. Choose Stroke from the list. This reopens the Layer Style dialog box. In the Stroke options, change the Fill Type from Color to Gradient. Then click on the arrow to the right of the Gradient Preview bar. Select the gold gradient we saved earlier by double-clicking on its thumbnail. Change the Style of the gradient from Linear to Reflected. Then set the Position to Outside and increase the size of the stroke to around 8 pixels. We now have a stroke around the text that's set to the same color as the text itself. Click on Bevel & Emboss on the left of the dialog box. This time, rather than applying Bevel & Emboss to the text, we'll apply it to the stroke. To do that, change the Style from Inner Bevel to Stroke Emboss. Then change the Technique to Chisel Hard if it's not set to that already, and set the Size to the same size you used for the stroke, which in my case was 8 pixels. Make sure that the Gloss Contour option is set to Ring Double. If it's not, click on the small arrow next to the thumbnail, and then just as we did earlier, double-click on the Ring Double thumbnail to select it. Also, make sure that the Anti-Aliased option is checked. Over on the left of the dialog box, turn on the Contour Style just below Bevel & Emboss by clicking inside its checkbox. This will further enhance the lighting around the stroke. Finally, let's finish off our layer styles by adding a glow around the letters. Click on the words Outer Glow. Then in the Outer Glow options, set the Opacity to 40%. Change the color of the glow by clicking on the color swatch. In the Color Picker, use the same color we chose for the inner glow by setting the R value to 232, the G value to 128, and the B value to 31. Click OK to close the Color Picker. Finally, increase the Size of the glow to somewhere between 50 and 60 pixels. At this point, we're done with our layer styles, so click OK to close the Layer Style dialog box. All that's left to do now is add some sparkles. We'll add them on their own separate layer. In the Layers panel, click on the Gold Copy layer to select it. Then, to add a new layer, on a Windows PC, press and hold the Alt key on your keyboard. On a Mac, press and hold the Option key. With the key held down, click on the New Layer icon. The Alt or Option key tells Photoshop to pop open the New Layer dialog box where we can name the layer before it's added. Name the layer Sparkles, and then click OK. Photoshop adds a new blank layer named Sparkles above the other layers. To create the sparkles, we'll use one of Photoshop's brushes. Select the Brush tool from the toolbar. The brush we need is not one of the ones that Photoshop loads in automatically, so we'll need to load it ourselves. On a Windows PC, right-click anywhere inside the document. On a Mac, Ctrl-click inside the document. This opens the Brush Preset Picker. Click on the Menu icon in the top right corner. In the lower half of the menu, you'll see a list of additional brush sets that we can choose from. Select the Assorted brushes. Photoshop will ask if you want to replace your current brushes with the new ones. Choose Append to add the new brushes in with the others. Back in the Brush Preset Picker, click again on the Menu icon in the top right corner. Then choose Small List. This lets us see the names of the brushes rather than just their thumbnails. Scroll down through the list until you find the Crosshatch 4 brush. The number 48 beside it means that the default size of the brush is 48 pixels. Double-click on the brush to select it. Now that we've selected the brush, let's sample a color from the text to use as the color for the sparkles. On a Windows PC, press and hold the Alt key on your keyboard. On a Mac, press and hold the Option key. This temporarily switches you from the Brush Tool to the Eyedropper Tool. Click on a light yellow in one of the letters to sample it. Then release your Alt or Option key to switch back to the Brush Tool. To add the sparkles, click on a few random spots around the letters. To add some variety, change your brush size before each click using the left and right bracket keys on your keyboard. The left bracket key makes the brush smaller, and the right bracket key makes it larger. Don't add too many sparkles or you'll overdo it. I'll add a couple to the letter G, a third one on the letter L, and a fourth one in the upper left of the letter D. If you find that your sparkles are too bright, lower the Opacity of the sparkles layer. You'll find the Opacity option in the upper right of the Layers panel. I'll lower mine to 80%. And there we have it! That's how to easily turn text into gold using Layer Styles, a custom gradient and a brush in Photoshop! As always, I hope you enjoyed this video and hopefully you learned something along the way. Be sure to click the Subscribe button for more videos. Thanks for watching and I'll see you next time! I'm Steve Patterson from PhotoshopEssentials.com.