6 Quick’n'Dirty Photoshop Text Effects From Scratch

May 29th in Text Effects by Collis

Photoshop is great for embellishing display text with little effects. When you add layer styles into the equation, you have the added benefit of the styles being easily transferable. In this tutorial I'll show you how to make six different effects using just layer styles. So really this is like six tutorials in one!

Author: Collis

Hello! I started PSDTUTS because years ago reading Photoshop tutorials was how I got into design. I hope the site helps and inspires others! You can find me on Twitter!

All six of these effects use just layer styles. If you are a Plus member, you can simply download the ZIP pack of six PSDs for this tutorial and copy and paste the styles. If you aren't a plus member, don't worry! I've given enough direction in the instructions that you can piece them together, though I must admit copying so many layer styles may send you slightly crazy :-)

Quick Gold Text

There are a lot of ways to make "gold" text. This one makes use of two layers with the exact same text on it. They are layered on top of each other with the bottom layer a few pixels down so that it gives an illusion of 3 dimenions.

The font we're using here is Trajan—a very elegant typeface that suits gold text.

First the top layer, which is made with the usual suspects—a bevel, a gradient overlay, and so on. Note the faint drop shadow that actually gets applied to the layer below it (which then has its own drop shadow).

This is the layer that gives the depth to our letters. Notice that the interior bit is not important because it gets covered by our gold plating layer above. It uses an Outer Bevel on top of a fat Stroke to create the highlights. Then when we place the other layer on top they come together to make a lovely gold effect!

There are a lot of ways to make "gold" text. This one makes use of two layers.

3D Metallic Text

This effect is actually just a variation on the gold text. As you can see below, we've again used the dual copies of the text, each with layer styles applied. Here I used a different Gloss Contour on the beveled text below, and of course everywhere we used a yellow shade in the last effect, I used a grey color here.

To try something slightly different, I also applied a text warp. You can do this by clicking on to the text layer, selecting the Horizontal Type Tool (T) and then an icon appears at the top (shown below) that you click on. This gives the Warp Text dialog box.

Now if you apply a Bulge to one of the layers, but not the other, you get a slight distortion that looks neat.

DoubleType

This effect is much simpler and just relies on having two versions of the text, one styled and one not. I've used Futura as my typeface here. I believe I saw this effect on a movie poster once so I've used red the way they did, but it works just as well with other colors and combinations.

All there is to do is apply two bits of layer styling:

  1. Add a 1px Outer Stroke using a gradient instead of a color. I've used one of Photoshop's metallic gradients (see the thin metal style further down for more details). It gives the edges a shiny quality that's nice.
  2. Then we add a black to white Gradient Overlay to the text set to Overlay and 50%. This means when you change the text color it automatically adjusts so it has a nice bit of shading over the top.

HyperColor

This effect I discovered at Chris Garrett Media's site where he uses it to great effect. It's a very simple effect really, you just grab some text (typeface is DIN in this example) and give it a Gradient Overlay. Photoshop has some really nice Color Harmony gradients that you can add by clicking on that little arrow that points to the right on the Gradient Editor dialog box. The gradients it adds are the bunch at the bottom. If you choose one of those and set it to about 59% on white text, set on a dark background.

Thin Metal

This is the simplest way to make a metallic effect. It relies on the fact that when you see metal in real life, it's usually got lots of highlights and shadows, especially shinier, chromier type metals. So by using two copies of the same gradient at different angles you can make this effect happen really easily and give your text a metallic effect.

It's best on a thin typeface because otherwise the interior of the text looks dull and flat (unless of course we added more styling, but then it wouldn't be super quick!)

So first of all I decided to make my text 'stand up' in this example. So just create a layer below your text and draw tiny circles of black below the points of each letter. Then blur them by going to Filters > Blur > Gaussian Blur and set it to about 2px. Then hit Ctrl+T and squash them vertically. Finally set them to about 30% Opacity so they are nice and faded out.

For letters like the a and e where there is a larger area of the letter touching the 'floor', you can use the transform tool to stretch the circle our horizontally.

Finally I duplicated one of my circle shadows and stretched it waay out so that it went underneath the whole bit of text to make the overall shadow.

Experiment and you should be able to create some neat little pools of shadow under the letters.

Now the actual text is just a combination of a Gradient Overlay and a 1px Stroke that uses the same gradient. The gradient we use (and it's the same as in the Double Type effect above) is a metallic gradient that comes with Photoshop. You can add this to your gradients palette, using that little right arrow shown in the Gradient Editor below, then choose Metals and you should see it appear.

The key here is to make sure the Angle on the overlay and the stroke is different. This is what creates the highlights on the text that you can see in the close up screenshot above.

I also set the main overlay to just 14% Opacity over the top of some grey text so that it was a little faded out, but that's optional.

Plastic Fantastic

I love these gel-type text styles, though I must admit I don't think I've ever actually used one in a real design. But who cares, they are so fun to make. This one uses two copies of the text and two different layer styles (similar to our first two metal texts earlier).

You can see the two layers below. The main styling is done in the bottom layer, while the top one is used to create that shine effect.

In the bottom layer we've used a bunch of glows, altered shadows, and gradient overlays. You can see the actual settings further below.

In this layer I've heavily modified a Bevel and Emboss style to create that sharp-edged highlight. Again, you can see the exact settings, including the shape of the gradient contour below.

Digg

Edit: For some reason when I submitted the link to Digg, it doesn't seem to have sync'ed up, anyhow so here's the *real* digg bookmarklet thing-a-me-bob:

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User Comments

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  1. Yafundy May 29th

    comme d’hab, clap clap


  2. Water Marks Video Tutorial May 29th

    Great tips and tricks!


  3. Godonholiday May 29th

    Sorry, my name seems to have changed to my link?
    Anyways… as I was saying… great tutorials!


  4. Umar May 29th

    Not feeling this tutorial man. Usually yours are dope but this def. is “quick” - all the text effects have a unprofessional, tacky look to them.


  5. Bruce Alrighty May 29th

    Nice quick tutorial.


  6. From_Azerbaijan May 29th

    Simple & beautiful!


  7. Alex Beltechi May 29th

    Good stuff there Collis. Thanks


  8. Frippe May 29th

    Nice effects. But is it only me or is the screenshots for the layers styles on the gold effect the same for both the layers? I think it might be duplicates and shouldnt the 3 other ones be for the gold effect?


  9. Collis May 29th

    oh whoops, thanks Frippe, I’ll fix that now!!! eek


  10. Collis May 29th

    Meanwhiles something weird seems to have happened when i submitted to digg, and the digg voting box isn’t working.

    Anyhow here’s the *REAL* digg link :)

    http://digg.com/design/6_Quick_n_Dirty_Photoshop_Text_Effects_From_Scratch

    I’ll go add it to the bottom of the post


  11. SINNED May 29th

    another pretty tricks from PSDTUTS. Thank you


  12. Julesy Wulesy May 29th

    Indispensable! Thank you for an awesome tut :) Makes my day to see layer styles being put to good use as opposed to all the tacky “bling type” tuts out there…

    NICE ONE!


  13. Lucian Lature May 29th

    Oh, I really like the 3d metal tip!…Great tip, thank you!


  14. Ben Griffiths May 29th

    Some great little tips there, thanks :D


  15. Daniel May 29th

    Cool ;-)

    Daniel


  16. RMPirsig May 29th

    Very nice. What font is that for the “hypercolor” text?


  17. SimKat May 29th

    I just want to thanks PSDTUTS and all its people for making these great free tutorials available for everyone. I have been a big fan of your site and are a also a “plus member” and I appreciate the quality and design you guys put together. Thumbs up!


  18. macias May 29th

    simply and nice.. ye i like it !


  19. Pablo Davi May 29th

    Great tut, Luv it


  20. Shane May 29th

    nice text effects that I’ll be using very soon :)


  21. cougar May 29th

    Really cool tips! I like the gold one the most!
    Thank you!!


  22. Al May 29th

    Another great tut. The blending modes are really important, but not always clear - is there a simple tutorial/illustration that would make clear when each should be used?


  23. T Jay May 29th

    Good tips!


  24. PannonDesigner May 29th

    Oh, hust fantastic. I love all the tipes. Now i’ll try it in Photoshop. :D


  25. PannonDesigner May 29th

    Oh, just fantastic. I love all the tipes. Now i’ll try it in Photoshop.


  26. Danny May 29th

    this is great, you should write more things like this :)


  27. Mason Sklut May 29th

    This just goes to show how you can push “Layer Styles” capabilities to the limit :)


  28. Arnaud Alves May 29th

    Very usefull


  29. Craig Snedeker May 29th

    Awesome tutorial!!!!!!!!!


  30. greven May 29th

    First two effects are good. The others are ok. I liked it. Nothing fancy but useful That’s what a website should all be about.


  31. Has.n May 29th

    very nice and very useful


  32. Clemson May 29th

    it’s nice to see them all in one quick tutorial…nice work.


  33. Eric May 29th

    Thanks for the tutorial!!!


  34. Grafiko May 29th

    Simple tips but very useful


  35. ubu May 29th

    Man if you guys made styles (as in preset layer styles) out of those and made them downloadable, it would be absurdly good.


  36. wayno007 May 30th

    Thanks, man! I’m a serious beginner — these tuts are invaluable.


  37. D. Carreira May 30th

    Great tutorial! Thanks!

    David Carreira


  38. Mukund May 30th

    The Gold text effect is the indeed the best of the lot!!

    But thanks a lot Collis, coz I’ve been trying to get such 3D effects within a single layer style, somehow using two layers with different styles and combining them just didn’t strike me!! So thanks again for pointing in the right direction!

    And yeah, they are simple, only after you have learned them!! Things look a lot easy in retrospect!!


  39. Andre May 30th

    Waiting for those slick advanced typo tuts. :)

    Good work tho man.


  40. LOSWL May 30th

    Fantabulous type tuts, I cannot get enough!!….the best thing about this is that once you create the layer styles you can save them for multiple projects!!….that 3D Effect is genius….LOL….great work!!


  41. varioke May 30th

    very nice tutorial !! i was looking for some nice text effects


  42. Andrew D May 30th

    Great tips, very much appreciated


  43. Paulo T May 30th

    These are great, thanks for the effort in creating and sharing this! Fantastic!


  44. sdsdfd May 30th

    Nice.


  45. Tom May 30th

    Amazing. There’s no need to say anything else.


  46. JPH May 30th

    Great tips on how to achieve these effects.


  47. sairaB May 30th

    Wow, these are awesome… I use a photoshop book (a href=”http://www.booksonboard.com/index.php?BODY=viewbook&BOOK=4740″>link to the ebooks version) for a lot of my work, but your tips are much easier to follow. Gorgeous!


  48. Jeff Lewis May 30th

    I love typography, and this is great.

    Thanks


  49. bobmartien May 30th

    Super :)


  50. Ariful Alam Khan May 30th

    Simple and Great. The typo looks great in subtle background. Thanks.. When are you going to post the fire tutorial? I can’t wait..


  51. TehSkm May 30th

    Mind telling us what fonts you guys used? Some of the styles don’t mention it. :D


  52. Victor May 30th

    Agree with the other bloke that posted this - does not live up to your usual high quality standard. sorry mate.

    I can see how it would be useful for a complete beginner to learn about layer styles, but the end results dont look great.


  53. Braden keith May 30th

    Purrfect. Thanks for not making this a Plus tutorial! :D


  54. Dan May 30th

    What font is used for ‘thin metal’?


  55. Andrew May 30th

    Nice text effect. Keep the good tutorials coming.


  56. Cain May 30th

    Nice article. I felt the effects got a bit more basic toward the end but they all look nice. :)


  57. Sean Farrell May 30th

    very nice, never really knew the first one, thanks.


  58. pickupjojo May 30th

    Great tips! <3


  59. Toxel.com May 30th

    Nice! Thanks for another great tutorial.


  60. Fred May 30th

    really nice & usefull!


  61. ZaFaR May 30th

    Really this is fantastic, awesome work, thank for sharing.


  62. SALMA May 30th

    very good


  63. Dot Design May 30th

    Just stumbled across your site, some good resources here. Cheers Gareth


  64. Lamin Barrow May 30th

    Wait that’s beyond COOL it’s HOT. Thx. :)


  65. TechCow May 30th

    The only effect i like is the double type effect. It’s kind of overused but i still like it


  66. Johan May 30th

    Thanks! Can by handy.

    My favo is Thin Metal :)


  67. Design May 30th

    I like this article keep going


  68. MD May 30th

    Thanks! :D I love it!


  69. koeching May 30th

    Nice tips guys ;)


  70. Joefrey Mahusay May 30th

    Wow this is nice tips Collis. It’s been a long time that you did not make a psd tutorial.. Great! Thanks for this. :)


  71. Glacia May 30th

    I’d love to see more text-centric tutorials in future - I’ve found that’s one of my biggest issues when it comes to designs >_> Awesome job with this one!


  72. worldfamousinds May 30th

    How about a list of the fonts? please?


  73. Andrew J May 30th

    Quick and dirty…… just the way I like it.

    Naw, really this was a great set.


  74. Zach May 30th

    Collis,

    I know you have a lot on your plate right now, but you have two tutorial websites dealing with design and web development and your menu is jacked in Firefox. Fix it brah, it’s not exactly jacked just the background image on hover and active is too high. Drop it down 3 to 4 pixels and you’re done.

    Peace we out.


  75. Zach May 30th

    It’s that way on NETTUTS too.


  76. Aminur Rahman [aka Tom R] May 30th

    nice, cheers.


  77. Daniel May 30th

    very nice and tricky ! thanks a lot collis !


  78. J.T. Shaver May 30th

    It’s alright. Shows very basic usage of blending options.

    - http://www.shaverdesign.com


  79. amogh May 30th

    your tutorials are xcellent . I see daily ur web site. i uploaded my work through ur inspiration on flicker but how i show u?


  80. Mark Provan May 30th

    Awesome To The Max

    Love it!!!


  81. Fodcj May 30th

    Really like the first gold effect one. Thanks!


  82. Pauk May 30th

    awesome tutorial. very nice clean-lookin’ text effects!


  83. P7 May 30th

    Your tutorials just keep me busy again.

    Thanks a lot.


  84. Monit May 30th

    This is Awesome……It has made my life so easier…..Thanks PSD tuts……..This is one rocking website…. best photoshop website ever


  85. sean steezy May 31st

    THANK YOU!!!!

    Thanks for doing this for everyone. Its amazing, every time i check up on this site, more awesome tuts that look so crisp and fresh.

    don’t ever stop. ever. never. nerver.


  86. Terry May 31st

    i’d like to see this in illustrator when you have the vectortuts up and running.

    also, are you guys going to cover fireworks or cinema 4-d in the nettuts? they’re great for slice and dice work…

    yes? no?


  87. Tony May 31st

    Nice Typo tutorial !
    I think we should have more…


  88. wildwise May 31st

    you’re not bad collis ;p


  89. Mark Abucayon May 31st

    Another psdtuts best tutorial simple yet useful.I really love all the effects.. Great tuts, Great site and Great Job for a Best Designer in town, Thanks collis for sharing this to us.


  90. KrashSquad May 31st

    Nice type tuts


  91. Nick May 31st

    on of the best. tutorials. period.


  92. DeadPresidentDesigns May 31st

    Thanks for sharing a lot of these effects…. I liked them because they are so simple…. thanks for sharing :)


  93. David May 31st

    the gold text looks really good!


  94. Hip Hop Makers May 31st

    These are great. Thanks


  95. Ali May 31st

    very nice very nice very nice very nice

    great tutorial


  96. Dan May 31st

    EXCELLENT TUTORIAL. This is the psdtuts I remember man! Tutorials that teach you something you can use in a variety of ways instead of just reproducing an image. Excellent work Collis.


  97. eric May 31st

    niiiice. these will be placed in my arsenal of weapons.


  98. CAMBRIDGE WEB DESIGN June 1st

    Very useful indeed - Thanks!


  99. eod June 1st

    thanks


  100. Constantin Potorac June 1st

    Just like the rest of your works and tutorials. Simple, professional and beautiful. ;)

    Thank you


  101. Diesel June 1st

    Again, some more simple tutorials that will push my deisgns up there a notch - is it just me or it all to do with the 1px BORDER?

    ALL HAIL THE 1 PIXEL BORDER!


  102. Housed93 June 2nd

    So good!


  103. Hoditta June 3rd

    That’s good…

    keep working!!!


  104. Tiago June 4th

    Thnks a lot!!!!


  105. Peter June 4th

    Another great read, I really enjoyed the Quick Gold one. I have been trying to create “Pirate” gold lettering like that for a while but not been able to find a good tutorial to get me started.

    I added a ‘Layer Styles Only’ tutorial to my site with a shiny chrome text.


  106. shanchumima June 4th

    wow, so cool !! giveing me many tips that i didn’t know before.
    thanks for sharing !


  107. Anush-logo design June 4th

    I used gold one in my logo work and my client loves it :)


  108. Rax June 5th

    Maybe not the facniest of looking texts I’ve seen on this site. However lots of great little tips and trix!
    Thank you, very good as usual.


  109. josef June 5th

    straight to the point… i like it.
    can’t wait to put it to good use.


  110. alan way June 5th

    Thank you… Good work.


  111. Musa June 5th

    Great tuts but my colours not matching your exactly. please put colour code on layer styles so it’s easy to see what the actual colour is. For example, the Yellowish/gold colours are almost the same.

    Great tutorial though;


  112. Alex Nichols June 6th

    What font is used in the thin metal section?

    Thanks,

    Alex Nichols


  113. ayoub June 7th

    greaaat i want also to know wich font is used in thin metal .. thanks


  114. JokR June 8th

    Great . . . just great . . . and to think about how many other effects you can achieve with the endless combinations of these simple effects


  115. Eric June 11th

    I love it, thanks so much! - Eric


  116. LJ June 12th

    what font is used for PLASTIC ?


  117. Jeff Payne June 14th

    Excellent! Very nice!


  118. Valen July 3rd

    Muy bueno el tutorial.. una masa!!! saludos


  119. wel July 4th

    u r rock u r the man


  120. subhash July 10th

    That will be help to improve my photoshop skill.


  121. Aarya July 21st

    Brilliant Tutorial!

    Have Used It Many Times And It Never Fails With It’s Simple,Clean Yet Unique Looks

    But I’m Very Keen On Getting My Hands On The Font You’ve Used For The ‘Plastic’ Typeface

    Kindly Share The Name Of The Font :D

    Regards,
    Aarya


  122. Bill July 22nd

    Hey! Another Great tutorial!!! Must have the font that you used for the Plastic one! And, to all the people who say “It looks unfinished!!!” or “It looks so unprofesional and low quality!!!”: it says, Quick’n'Dirty Text Effect from Scratch… It doesn’t say, “6 Incredibly profesional and hard to make text effects that will confuse beginners and…”. Get a grip people! I think they look GREAT.

    Keep it up!!! I wish I could make a tutorial but I have no Idea on what to make it on!


  123. JMe July 29th

    Oh! very fantastic!! good job!


  124. JD August 5th

    one word for this tute: AWESOME! Thanks..learnt heaps.


  125. Jacob August 8th

    This is possibly the most incredibly useful and effective article on this entire site. My hat is off to you, sir.


  126. 13.GuE August 15th

    Amazing Man!
    Great Tutorial!!