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I'm almost ashamed to admit it, but I found
another excuse to go fishing. My wife and I are sharing our
anniversary this week, and somehow I convinced her that a few
days on the lake would be ideal for a mini vacation over, say, a
trip to visit relatives or the Big City. (Note: I'm in Montana,
so anyplace more populous than 100,000 people is considered
huge).
As a result of this coup, I'm in a pretty
festive mood. Thus this week's article is going to focus on what
I consider a fun effect... creating solid gold type embedded in
metal. Wait until you see the result... these letters look
heavy!
Let's start out by creating a new image. I'm
setting mine up as follows:
Width: 8 in
Height: 4 in
Resolution: 150
Mode: RGB
Background: White
Since we are basically doubling the 72 dpi, you
can view this at 50% and still have a fair rendering of what the
full-blown image looks like.
Now that we have our foundation, set the
foreground color to Black and the background to a light
orange... almost yellow. For this example my background is set
to #FF9900.
Type in your text in a new layer and Rasterize
the type. Command/Control>Click the layer name to turn your type
into a selection. Add Noise at about 30% Gaussian, and apply
difference clouds 3 times. Here's my example:
Before we get too gung-ho, duplicate this layer
and let's work on a copy.
Apply the Photocopy filter (Filter>Sketch>Photocopy) and set the
detail to 7 and darkness to 8. Apply the Plaster Filter
(Filter>Sketch>Plaster), adjusting the Image Balance to taste.
My settings are shown below:
Once satisfied, click OK.
Go to Filter>Render>Lighting Effects. I'm just
using the default settings, but you can certainly change the
brightness as you see fit.
It's starting to shape up nicely, isn't it? I'm
not done yet though. The one problem I have is the depth
issue... as it stands it appears someone poured our gold on a
piece of plain white paper, and that just won't do. We want
these letters to jump off the page, not lay there like a dead
trout destined for the frying pan... Oops, guess my mind was
wandering again. Did someone say 'Trout'?
Let's go back to the original type layer. Go to
Layer Styles, and apply the following Stroke:
Size: 10
Position: Outside:
Blend Mode: Normal
Opacity: 100%
Fill Type: Gradient
Gradient: Black to White
Style: Shape Burst
Create a new layer beneath this one, reselect
this layer and merge down. Now go back to layer styles and apply
this bevel:
...and this Bevel Contour:
You should have something resembling this:
We're getting there now. I still want a bit more
depth; so create a new layer beneath this one. Select this layer
and merge down (Command/Control+E), then duplicate the layer.
No select the bottom most type layer, click the
selection tool, and with the arrow keys move the type Left+2
clicks and Up+1 click. Duplicate again, select the bottom most
type layer, and move it again. Repeat this process until you are
happy with the thickness of the lettering.
The edges look pretty dull, so let's spice them
up a bit. We are working with metal after all, and we want this
puppy to shine!
Starting with the first layer we moved, begin
merging down until you have 3 layers and the background layer.
To the bottom type layer... this should be the one with all the
merged layers... apply the bevel/emboss in the Layer Styles with
these settings:
Now just dress it up with some sparkles using
the paintbrush or what ever. You may also want to place a shadow
behind it to really dress it up. Here's my finished product:
Hope you enjoyed this little ditty! As for me,
I'm outta here, as there's a trout out there with my name on it.
See ya at www.actionfx.com ! (Wait a minute... a trout with my
name on it? I'm gonna have to rethink that one, but it will keep
until I'm fishing!) |