Create a Simple, Elegant Textured Metal Text Effect in Adobe Photoshop

Using textures often adds nice detailing to effects and gives depth to flat designs. In this metallic effect Photoshop tutorial, I’ll show you how to create a simple metal text effect using layer styles. Then, I’ll show you how to make that text look more interesting by adding a simple texture overlay. 

Looking for a suitable luxury font for your projects? Do you need Photoshop text effects? Check out what’s available on Envato Elements, where you can find a wide variety of different digital assets for you to download and use quickly and easily. 

Like Glamore – Luxury Display Serif, a serif font that works well when using it to design templates, brochures, branding, logos, and more! Simply download it and install it using the link below:

Do you prefer video tutorials over detailed written guides? Then visit the Envato Tuts+ YouTube channel for Photoshop text effect tutorials and more. This new video will teach you how to add a metallic effect in Photoshop:

What You’ll Learn in This Metallic Effect Photoshop Tutorial

• How to create the background
• How to create the text
• How to style the text
• How to add the texture
• How to add the flares
• How to adjust the lighting and the coloring of the final result

What You’ll Need

The following assets were used during the production of this cool text effect Photoshop tutorial:

• SpinweradC Bold font
• 10 Paper Textures
• 3px tile pattern by Gre3g
• Free Pack 6000 photoshop gradients by Supertuts007 (Load the RS_Chrome.grd and CSP True Sky Gradients.grd files)
• New York Stock Photo

1. How to Create the Background

Step 1

Let’s start with this 3D text effect Photoshop tutorial. Create a new 1024 x 1024 px document in Adobe Photoshop. Set the Foreground color to #7d7d7d and the Background color to #434343. Pick the Gradient Tool, choose the Foreground to Background gradient fill, and click the Radial Gradient icon.

Then, click and drag from the center of the document to one of the corners to create the background gradient, and duplicate the Background layer.

Step 2

Import your paper texture and make sure that the layer is placed above the background layer. Then set the blend mode to the following:

• Blend Mode: Multiply
• Opacity: 100%

Step 3

This will add a subtle pattern to the background.

Step 4

Duplicate the Background copy layer, and then right-click the copy and choose Rasterize Layer Style. If you’re working with versions earlier than CS6, group the copy layer and then merge the group.

Change the rasterized layer’s Blend Mode to Overlay and the Opacity to 80%. This will intensify the pattern and darken the background.

2. How to Create the Text

Step 1

Next in this metal text effect Photoshop tutorial: the text. Create the text in All Caps using the font spinweradC Bold, the color #454646, the font Size 300 pt, and if you’re creating more than one line of text, change the Leading value to 250.

Step 2

Duplicate the text layer, and then change its Fill value to 0.

Step 3

Double-click the original text layer to apply a simple Drop Shadow effect using the values below:

• Distance: 35
• Size: 50

Step 4

This will apply the shadow to the bottom text layer.

3. How to Style the Text

This Photoshop text effect guide isn’t complete yet. Double-click the copy text layer to apply the following layer style.

Step 1

Add a Bevel and Emboss with these settings:

• Size: 10
• Uncheck the Use Global Light box
• Angle: -169
• Altitude: 64
• Check the Anti-aliased box
• Highlight Mode: Vivid Light

Step 2

For the Contour, just check the Anti-aliased box.

Step 3

Add a Texture using the 3 px tile pattern.

Step 4

Add a Stroke with these settings:

• Size: 1
• Fill Type: Gradient
• Style: Reflected
• Angle: 45
• Use the Chrome Bar 135 gradient

Step 5

Add an Inner Glow with these settings:

• Blend Mode: Overlay
• Noise: 100%
• Color: #f6f6f6
• Size: 10

Step 6

Add a Gradient Overlay with these settings:

• Blend Mode: Soft Light
• Opacity: 35%
• Style: Reflected
• Angle: 45
• Check the Reverse box
• Use the stove pipe 10 gradient

Step 7

Add a Drop Shadow with these settings:

• Opacity: 62%
• Distance: 8
• Size: 8

Step 8

This will style the main text. The text looks a bit flat, though, and it lacks some interesting details. So we’re going to use a texture to fix that.

4. How to Add the Texture

Step 1

This cool text effect Photoshop tutorial needs a texture next. Place the NYC Stock image on top of all layers, and then go to Filter > Blur > Gaussian Blur and change the Radius to 1.5.

Step 2

Change the texture layer’s Blend Mode to Overlay and lower its Opacity to 20%, or any other value you like, depending on how subtle or strong you want the effect to be. You can also resize the texture and move it around now that you can see the text behind it until you like the result you get.

Step 3

Command/Control-Click the text layer’s thumbnail to create a selection.

Step 4

Click the Add layer mask icon at the bottom of the Layers panel to get rid of the extra texture outside the text.

The cool thing about using a layer mask instead of deleting is that you can reapply it to any other text you create, without the need to work on the texture all over again.

5. How to Add the Flares

Step 1

Next up in this 3D text effect Photoshop guide: flares. Set the Foreground color to #ebebeb, pick the Brush Tool, and open the Brush panel (Window > Brush).

Choose a soft round 35 px brush tip, and change its Roundness value to 30%.

Step 2

Create a new layer on top of all layers, call it Flares, and change its Blend Mode to Vivid Light. Then add some flares over a couple of the horizontal text edges.

Step 3

To add more flares with different Angle values all over the text, you can change the brush tip’s Angle value by clicking and dragging the arrow in the preview box next to the Angle value in the Brush panel, or by simply typing a value manually in the Angle field.

6. How to Adjust the Lighting and Coloring of the Final Result

Step 1

The metal PSD text effect design is almost complete. Click the Create new fill or adjustment layer icon at the bottom of the Layers panel and choose Levels.

Step 2

Change the Highlights value to 245 to brighten up the effect a little bit.

Step 3

Click the Create new fill or adjustment layer icon again and choose Gradient Map.

Step 4

Choose the gradient below from the CSP True Sky Gradients.grd file, and then change the Gradient Map layer’s Blend Mode to Vivid Light and its Opacity to 30%. This will enhance the coloring of the final result.

Congratulations! Your Metal PSD Text Effect Design Is Done!

In this metal text effect Photoshop tutorial, we created and styled some text using a couple of different layer effects to achieve the metal look.

Then we used a stock image texture to add some detailing to the metal text, and to make it look less flat and more interesting. After that, we modified a simple brush to add a couple of flares over the edges of the text.

Finally, we added some adjustment layers to enhance the lighting and coloring of the final result. I hope you liked this elegant text effect Photoshop tutorial. Next up, we’ll explore some ready-to-use assets for your projects!

Top 5 Luxury Fonts From Envato Elements

Looking for some suitable font styles for your metallic effect Photoshop project? Then head on over to Envato Elements, where you can download many different luxury fonts and elegant text effect Photoshop add-ons ready to use. Here are five of my favourites:

MARLIN: Luxury Font (OTF)

Marlin is an elegant sans-serif luxury font that would fit perfectly for your magazine, websites, logo, beauty posters, and branding projects.

Deluce: Luxury Serif Font (OFT, TTF)

Deluce is a luxury modern serif font which conveys a business-like style. This is mostly suitable for projects that are involved with art, book design, trendy galleries, weddings, and more.

Glamore: Luxury Display Serif (OTF, TTF)

Glamore is a luxury, decorative serif font that is perfect for designing logos, templates, brochures, videos, branding, and more. It comes in both OTF and TTF files that are easy to install and will work with both PC and Mac.

Laura: A Minimal Luxury Font (OTF, TTF, WOFF)

Laura is a decorative luxury serif font that conveys elegance and beauty. It’s suitable for use in modern logos, branding projects, weddings, titles, and more.

GLAMOUR: Luxury Sans Serif Font (OTF, TTF, WOFF)

Glamour is an elegant, modern sans serif font with a unique and classic look. It’s suitable for projects that have a luxury theme, magazines, social media, logos, branding projects, and more.

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