METALLIC LETTERS

SIMULATING METALLIC SURFACES © copyright Giulio Porta. All rights reserved. This project entails the creation of four separate lines of text spelling out 4 words related to the presentation of your work. These line of text should not be viewed as an end in themselves, rather they should be designed with a content that can be integrated in your presentation. If you are clueless concerning what to write, think of words directly related to your work, such as ILLUSTRATION, LAYOUT DESIGN, FINE ART, etc. Avoid multiple lines of text typed as a single font string, you'll not be able to apply standard gradient to multiple line of text that well. Avoid fonts with a thin typeface, they are difficult to pick (select). Finally the text must be given attributes simulating 3D metallic surfaces. These are the 4 different types of metallic surfaces I would like you to create: chrome brushed metal rusted or corroded metal anodized aluminum If you are strapped for time use only one type of metallic surface effect for all 4 words.
When these lines of text will become part of your presentation, they should be located in separate pages and used to introduce a new project, only then you'll be able to make these lines of text as large as possible, so the viewer of your presentation can see all the details you may have applied to these metallic looking lines of text.
There are several considerations that you should make when working with text. legibility, do not use a font that is difficult to read! the type and size of font used. its integration in the page background color. the spacing in between letters and letter pairs (what is know as Tracking and Kerning). the size of the final product as related to where this image will appear.
CHROME Chrome is highly reflective surface with a mirror like quality. That type of illusion can be achieved by applying a gradient to selected surfaces. For guidelines concerning the creation of chrome surfaces please refer to: Creating the illusion of a reflecting surface, such as chrome, using the Linear Gradient, her below.
BRUSHED METAL The illusion of a brush metal surface can be achieved by applying a motion blur: Filters > Blur > Motion Blur to dots or dotted brush strokes placed vertically on a canvas. The motion blur filter will streak them along a direction of your choosing, The effect you are striving to achieve is that of brush metal. If you have never paid attention to that type of surface in real life, this filter may not help you much. Metal may be brushed to give it a more durable or scratch proof surface.
RUSTED OR CORRODED METAL Rust and corrosion effects can be achieved with a number of filters such as Distort > Ocean Ripple or Glass. In order to created the effect of a pitted or worn surface those filters must be applied using their lower settings.
ANODIZED ALUMINUM Anodizing is a process that converts aluminum to a new, derivative substance that protects it from corrosion and abrasion, and allows it to be dyed in a range of colors because the new aluminum is porous. The term “anodizing” comes from the process itself, during which the aluminum part undergoing the treatment becomes the anode part of an electrical circuit. The process is electrolytic, and the coating that forms on the aluminum part is called aluminum oxide. Anodizing can be done at home with the proper solutions and dyes, a car battery charger, and the proper precautions.
Reflective Even though the chrome gradient is intended to simulate a reflective surface, you can simulate another reflective surface under the text, like if the welcome sign would be sitting on a glass table against a black background. The black background should be on a separate layer so it can be turned on or off and replaced with another background. This is easily done by selecting and deleting or turning off the welcome sign background, duplicating the welcome sign layer, and use the Transform > Flip Horizontal command.

Here's a brief outline of the process: Type the line of text to spell out a word. Space the letters further apart using the Character and Paragraph palette Select the typeface of each letter of your line of text, with the magic wand, and stoke it, stroking will ad an outline to the typeface. With the type face select, copy and past it to a new layer. Select the stroked area, copy and past to a new layer.
Type the line of text to spell out a word. When you type text in Photoshop a new layer containing just the text separate from the background will be created. This is done so you can move the text around and center it according to your design needs. Text can be typed horizontally, vertically or as Type Mask, which means the text is typed as a selection. We are not going to use the type mask but you can read about it here Working with the type mask
Type the line of text to spell out a word. Text is always typed on a separate layer, separate from the background, so that it can be selected and moved around. Photoshop does that for you automatically. But in order to perform certain operations like Stroking, having the text on separate layer will prevent that from happening because as the text exist on a separate layer it has no background of its own. Uncheck the eye icon of the Background layer to see that. Therefore to make the kind of the selection and operations that we'll need to make for this project we'll need to Flatten Image. Flatten will bring the two layers into one, so the text and the background will coexist on the same layer.
Spacing letters further apart using the Character and Paragraph palette After the text is typed you should activate the Character and Paragraph palette by clicking on it toggle icon in the text options menu at the top of the interface. In the CHARACTER palette, with the text highlighted (click and drag over it) you can change its size, the spacing of the letters, that goes by the name of Tracking and Kerning, and much more. In the AV field type a large number, such as 200, that will space the letters further apart. If the letters will be space further apart than their default setting, when you will stroke the typeface the stroke outlines will not touch each other.
Select the typeface of each letter of your line of text, with the magic wand, and Stroke it, stroking will ad an outline to the typeface. Copying and pasting both the typeface and the stroke areas to create two layers or two stencils that can be copied and pasted, each, several times anytime you want to experiment with a new effect. Initially the color of the typeface and the stroke areas is unimportant, it can be black on white, white on black or any contrasting colors.
Stroking Stroking is CG jargon, meaning: adding a thickness or an outline to a Selection or a Path. Go to Edit > Stroke and the the Stroke window specify the number of pixels of your stroking. Before you Stroke you'll need to Flatten the text layer with the Background otherwise Stroking will not be possible as text has no background or Outside area to Stroke into. Stroking uses the Foreground color by default but you can pick your own color in the Stroke window. After a selection is made, in your case the face of the text , Stroking can take place: in the background, in other words Outside of a selection, on in its Inside (don't use this option) or its Center (don't use this option) If the background is on a separate layer, the Stroking option will be grayed out.
With the typeface select, copy and past it to a new layer. Select the stroked area, copy and past to a new layer. Keep these two parts of the design at the bottom of your Layers stack. Keep them as stencils to be used as needed as many time as needed, just don't forget to duplicate them before you go on and use them.
Simulating reflections Photoshop comes with a ready made Linear Gradient that goes by the name of CHROME, the gradient is intended to simulate the reflection of a desert like landscape, blue sky at the top, flat ground at the bottom. This particular gradient was created in Photoshop, eventually you can create your own gradients, or variations of existing ones.
A Linear Gradient, is a transition between one or more colors. The transition is continuous normally to the direction along which the gradient is dragged. Gradients, in general, are a good way of simulating metallic reflections. With the Linear Gradient tool selected, Left click hold and drag from the top of your text's edge to its very bottom, make sure to drag vertically, the gradient will spread accordingly, like in the word HELLO here to the right. Gradients have their own properties panel when you can select the type of gradient, its Opacity, and Edit the gradient itself.
The Gradient Editor to Edit a gradient click on the color gradient swatch. In the Gradient Editor panel you can change the way the gradient spreads, and the colors that is made out of. The gradient strip has several sliders, by left clicking and dragging on them you'll be able to control the beginning and end of the color's spreading.
Creating and managing gradients if you left click hold and drag on a slider you'll be able to relocate the spreading of the gradient. If you want to get rid of one of the sliders left click hold and drag and drag it off the panel. the smaller diamond shaped sliders will control the spreading. if you want to ad a new slider with the Alt key pressed down click hold and drag onto an existing slider to create a new one from it, or simply left click in between two existing sliders. newly created gradients can be saved. Avoid fruity looking colors for this project.
More about Stroking Go to Edit > Stroke, set the stroke width to 8 pixel. That number may vary depending on the size of the text you have chosen. In the Stroke panel set Location to: Outside, Opacity 100%, Mode: Normal. Stroking will ad an outline to the text, that edge is intended to the text the illusion of a beveled, extruded or stamped out 3D logo. Typefaces should not be stroked in their same color, otherwise you will not see the stroke. What matters is that the colors of the typeface, stroke, and background are contrasting. Eventually they will all be replaced by colors simulating a metallic looking surface. With the MAGIC WAND tool, by hold down the shift key for multiple selections, or with the Ad to a selection button on, select the area(s) that you just stroked and apply the same gradient but with a slight offset, to show that bevels are receiving light differently.
Stroke again, this time change the pixels stoking amount to a few pixels. This will create an edge or a variety of edges both inside and outside the shapes of the text, giving it a sharp look. With the SMUDGE tool smooth the chrome reflection where the sky meets the ground.
A Lens Flair filter may ad the illusion of a light source reflecting off the metallic surface of your logo. This is not a requirement, also you may not have a dark background for the flair to be visible. But you can make the background black by selecting the background with the magic wand, hold down the shift key to include the inside of the letter O. Fill the selection with a 100% foreground black color. Use the bucket tool to fill the background. Next under FILTERS > RENDER apply a LENS FLAIR.
The Lens Flair filter can be applied several times. But if it will end abruptly at the image's edge, you will not be able to integrate your text with a background of the same color in a web page.
Glass is not a material that I would like you to simulate for this project as this tutorial is still in the works. Creating a glass surface effect. To begin with, you will need to open a background image, because you'll see through the glass, a background image is essential.
Glass is somewhat tricky to do, because for its success it does require several layers, in particular: An Alpha channel to be used as a stencil, so only the portion of the text, to which effects have been applied, can be made visible The application of a filter such as Embossing and Distort > Spherize, or other, to simulate refraction Change in opacity for some of the layers Layer blending Because there are so many different ways to give a surface the look of glass, and above all because an entire tutorial can be dedicated to this subject, I will leave up to you to investigate and experiment further.
Units of measurement Picas and Points are the units of measurement widely used in graphics. There are 12 Points per Pica and 6 Picas per inch. One inch is is therefore equivalent to 72 points. Using Picas you can avoid having to deal with the fractional or decimal values required when working with inches.
Here are some of the type setting terms you'll need to know. Study and investigate them further, in particular if you are contemplating a career in desk top publishing. In desk top publishing there is a lot of work and thought that goes into issues concerning the appearance of text. Working with text can become an art form. But this is not entirely the scope of this project.