In this tutorial we’re going to show you how to create an eye popping chrome text effect. This effect jumps off the screen! There’s no reason this effect can’t be applied to objects other than text.

1. Create a new document, in any size, my example uses 10 inches by 7 inches with resolution of 100 pixels/inch and a white background.

2. Add some text on it’s own layer, I used the “Impact” font size: 120pt. You’ll want to use a bold font for this as using thinner fonts will not be as effective.

Next rasterize the layer - from the main menu select ‘Layer’ -> ‘Rasterize’ -> ‘Type’.

I then added a frame around the text using the rectangular marquee tool, I set a 20px border width by selecting ‘Edit’ -> ‘Stroke’ from the main menu and setting my width to 20 px.

We should now have something that resembles this:

3. Next, hold the control key (Ctrl) (Command-click for mac) and click on your main layers thumbnail in the layers palette to select it. With your layer selected, go to the main menu and choose ‘Select’ -> ‘Save Selection’. Type
a name for the channel, I called my ‘Channel_main’. With your name entered, click ‘Ok’ to close the ‘Save Selection’ dialog.

To deselect your layer hit Control Key (Ctrl) + ‘D’ key (Command-D for mac). Next step, go to the ‘Channels’ palette (’Window’ -> ‘Channels’ also next to your ‘Layers’ tab). Within the ‘Channels’ palette select the ‘Channel_main’ channel we just created, you will see your image change as demonstrated.

4. With “Channel_main” selected, navigate to the main menu and choose ‘Filter’ -> ‘Blur’ -> ‘Gaussian Blur’. I set my radius to ‘2 px’.

5. Next, I added a new layer to my project (select ‘Layer’ -> ‘New’ -> ‘Layer’ from the main menu). With this new layer selected, navigate to ‘Edit’ -> ‘Fill’ on the main menu. Choose ‘50% Gray’ from the ‘Use’ dropdown list and click ok.

This will fill your entire document with gray, DON’T BE ALARMED - this is supposed to happen.

6. With our new (”Gray”) layer still selected, navigate to ‘Filter’ -> ‘Render’ -> ‘Lighting Effects’ on the main menu. In the ‘Texture Channel’ dropdown list choose ‘Channel_main’. In the preview pane, click on the points of the light adjustment control and set your light source in the desired direction. As you can see, mine is pointing to the upper left as shown here:

You should now have something which resembles this:

7. Next, select ‘Image’ -> ‘Adjustments’ -> ‘Curves’ from the main menu and adjust your curve settings as shown here:

8. Next, in the ‘Layers’ palette, place your mouse cursor between the two main layers (at the point where the arrow is pointing) and hold down the Alt key (Option key for mac). You should now see your cursor icon turn into two overlapping circles - now click your mouse. You’ve just created what is called a “clipping group” between these two layers. You should now see that most of our top layer has been “masked” out by the bottom layer leaving behind our new chrome text.

We’re almost finished, you should now have some shiny new chrome text resembling this:

9. Finally, to finish our effect we’ll add some drop shadow to our original text layer (the one directly above your ‘Background’ layer). With this layer selected, click ‘Add Layer Style’ button on the bottom of our ‘Layers’ palette.
Hit ‘Ok’ to apply the default settings and that’s it! You should now have some spiffy new chrome text. Alternatively, you can add background color to enhance the appearance if you desire. Simply change the color of your ‘Background’ layer. I’ve changed mine using “#FF9000″ as the background color.

My finished product with background color (”#FF9000″) added.

Download the complete psd file for this tutorial here.