Hi. This is Marty from Blue Lightning TV.
I'm going to show you how to recreate shiny, high gloss plastic text and graphics.
This is an update of tutorials I’ve done on earlier versions of Photoshop.
This version is quicker and more streamlined.
For your convenience, I provided this black and white graphic of bars that you can use
to place your text between.
Feel free to use your own bars or other graphic to frame your text.
The first step is to delete the white background behind the graphic.
To do this, click the lock icon to unlock the layer.
Open your Channels panel.
If you don't see it, go to Window and Channels.
Ctrl-click or Cmd-click the RGB channel to make a selection of the black shapes.
Open back the Layers panel and press the Delete key to delete the white background.
Deselect it by pressing Ctrl or Cmd + D. Temporarily hide the shapes by clicking the eyeball icon
next to the layer.
We'll make a new layer below it by Ctrl-clicking or Cmd-clicking the New Layer icon.
We'll fill the empty bottom layer with any color.
The color is irrelevant since we're going to replace it with a gradient overlay.
Let's press Ctrl or Cmd + Delete to fill it with our background color.
Your background color may be different from mine, but as I mentioned, it doesn't matter.
Double-click the layer to open its Layer Style window.
Click "Gradient Overlay" and the gradient bar.
Click the black and white box and click the lower, right Stop.
Click the lower white box and for the Brightness, type in 50%.
Its hexadecimals are 80, 80, 80.
Click OK on the Color Picker and Gradient Editor.
The Blend Mode is Normal and the Opacity is 100%.
Check "Reverse" and choose "Radial".
Make the Angle: 90 degrees and the Scale: 110%.
then, click OK or press Enter or Return.
We'll convert it into a Smart Object, so later if we want to, we can adjust the gradient's
size, tone and location.
To do this, click the icon at the upper, right corner and click "Convert to Smart Object".
Go to Filter and Filter Gallery.
Open the "Distort" folder and click "Glass".
Choose "Tiny Lens".
Make the Distortion: 20, the Smoothness: 1 and the Scaling: 60%.
Make the bars visible and hide the background.
Make a new layer. In this layer, we'll add our text.
Open your Horizontal Type Tool and pick a thick, heavy font, since they will have the
best results for this effect.
I'm picking a font called, "Alfarn Regular" which comes free with the Adobe Typekit if
you have an Adobe Creative Cloud subscription.
I provided the link to the font in my video's description.
I'll make its size 250 points, but feel free to adjust its size based on the font you choose
and how many characters in your text.
I'll make its aliasing: Sharp and center alignment.
Click on your document and type out your text.
We'll center it in a moment.
To adjust the space between all of characters, highlight all of them and press and hold Alt
or Option and the right or left arrow key on your keyboard.
To adjust the space between just two characters, click between those characters and repeat
the keystrokes.
To center the text, open your Move Tool and press Ctrl or Cmd + A to select the entire document.
Click the "Align Horizontal Centers" icon and the "Align Vertical Centers" icon.
Then, deselect it.
Even though my text is technically centered, I'd like to move it to the right a bit, to
optically center it.
To do this, I'll press the right arrow key on my keyboard multiple times.
Quick tip: If you press and hold the Shift key while pressing the arrow key, it'll move
the text 10 pixels at a time.
We'll convert our image into a Smart Object, so we modify it non-destructively and if we
want to, replace it with other text or graphics without having to redo the effects.
To do this, Shift-click the shapes layer to make it active as well,
and click "Convert to Smart Object".
Double-click an empty area of the top layer to open its Layer Style window.
Click "Color Overlay" and the color box.
For now, type into the hexadecimal field, 8 and five zeroes.
At the end of this video, I'll show you how to quickly change its colors.
Click "Inner Glow".
Change the Blend Mode to Multiply and the Opacity to 50%.
Make the color: black.
Then, click OK.
Tick "Edge".
Make the Choke: 10% and the Size: 30 pixels.
Click "Bevel and Emboss".
The Style is "Inner Bevel" and the Technique is Smooth.
The Depth is 32% and the Direction is Up.
The Size is 31 pixels and the Soften is 2 pixels.
Make sure Global Light is unchecked.
The Angle is 150 degrees and the Altitude is 46 degrees.
Open the Gloss Contour list and click the gear icon.
Make sure "Small List" is checked, so the list will show the names of the contours.
Click "Triple Ring".
If you don’t see it, click back on the gear icon and click “Contours”.
When you see this message, click OK.
The Highlight Blend Mode is Screen and its Opacity is 75%.
The Shadow Mode is irrelevant since we'll make its opacity 0%.
Click "Contour" and open your list.
Click "Ring - Double" and click OK.
The front reflection is a bit too bright, so make a copy of the layer by pressing Ctrl or Cmd + J.
Double-click "Bevel & Emboss" of the copy to open it in the Layer Style window.
Reduce the Altitude to 45 degrees and reduce its opacity to 60%.
Shift-click the bottom layer and convert them into one Smart Object.
Make the background visible and double-click an empty area of the top layer to open its
Layer Style window.
Click "Inner Glow".
Click the color box and pick white.
Change the Blend Mode to "Color Dodge" and make the opacity: 25%.
Check "Center", make the Choke: 15% and the Size: 25 pixels.
Click "Drop Shadow".
The Blend Mode is Linear Burn, the Opacity is 10% and the Angle is 90 degrees.
The Distance is 20 pixels, the Spread is 0 and the Size is 15 pixels.
Lastly, I'll show you how to quickly change the plastic's color.
Click the Adjustment Layer icon and click "Hue / Saturation".
Simply drag the Hue slider to the right or left.
This is Marty from Blue Lightning TV.
Thanks for watching!