Creating Chrome in Adobe Photoshop
This Photoshop tutorial explores creating a chrome effect from scratch using the Minimum and Maximum filter, Gaussian blur, Lighting Effects, Curves and Layer Modes. While the screenshots are from Photoshop CS2, the technique can be applied to any version of Photoshop from v4.0 upwards.
Forget one click Layer Styles! Forget Actions! Forget third-party Plugins. Creating Do-It-Yourself chrome effects in Adobe Photoshop is fun, easy and far more satisfying! :)
Making a bump map
When it comes to making ultra smooth bump maps the Gaussian Blur is your friend. A good bump map now, a good chrome effect later on.
This first step involves the creation of the bump map along with the other components you'll need along the way.
- Make a new RGB file. I've made mine 72ppi, 300pixels width, 100 pixels height
- With black as the foreground colour, use the text tool to place one large word in the image
TIP: It's handy to select a heavy font - nothing too fine and elegant.
- Duplicate your text layer and rasterize the type. Rename this layer 'thick'
- With 'thick' active choose Filter > Other > Minimum. Set the radius to 1 pixel
- Duplicate your text layer and rasterize the type. Rename this layer 'thin'
- With 'thin' active choose Filter > Other > Maximum. Set the radius to 1 pixel
- Make a new empty layer and name it 'shadow'
- Make a second new empty layer and name it 'window'
- Control+click 'thick' to load it as a selection.
TIP: In Photoshop CS2 you need to Control+click the thumbnail of the layer in the layers palette. In older version you can click anywhere in the layer.
- Choose Select > Inverse (Shift+Control+I) to invert the selection
- With the 'shadow' layer active fill the selection with black
- With 'window' active fill the selection with white
- Deselect (Control+D)
- With the 'shadow' layer active choose Filter > Blur > Gaussian Blur. Set the blur to 3.0 pixels
Your layers palette should look something like the following:
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With 'shadow' active select the Move tool (V) and use the arrow keys to nudge the shadow across and down - I've chosen 2 pixels across and four down for mine.
TIP: After running through the entire chrome process once it's worth coming back to this step and moving the shadow layer different amounts.
Lighting Effects
We'll now use the bump map in Photoshop's Lighting Effects Filter.
- Make only the 'background', 'shadow' and 'window' layers visible
- Go to the Channels palette and duplicate the blue channel. Rename it 'fx'
- With 'fx' active choose Image > Adjust > Invert (Control+I)
- Return to the layers palette and make a new layer - rename it 'chrome'
- Place 'chrome' at the top of the stack
- With the 'chrome' active, fill it with white.
- Choose Filter > Render > Lighting Effects. Select 'fx' as the texture channel - refer to screen capture and Apply.
The text should be looking fairly funky at this point - we need to trim it.
- Control+click your original text layer to load it as a selection
- Choose Select > Inverse (Shift+Control+I)
- With 'chrome' active press delete
Curves and Layer Modes
- Make a new layer, rename it 'gold' and place it above 'chrome' in the stack
- Fill the 'gold' layer with a colour close to gold - try Red 204, Green 153
- Alt+Click on the line that divides 'gold' and 'chrome' in the layers palette to form a clipping group, clipping the contents of the 'gold' layer to the 'chrome' layer.
- Change the layer mode of 'gold' to overlay
- Fill the Background with a dark colour - so you can easily see the chrome effect as you apply the next step.
- Choose Layer > New Adjustment Layer > Curves (or click on the Adjustment/Fill Layer icon at the bottom of the Layers palette) to create a Curves adjustment layer.
TIP: If you're using a version of Photoshop that doesn't support Adjustment layers, just use Curves as per normal i.e. Image > Adjustments > Curves (Control+M)
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Refer to the screen capture above - destroy the curve in a similar fashion.
TIP: You'll see your gold chrome effect previewing in your image as you modify the curve - stop when you are impressed!
You may need to trim the 'chrome' layer as there will if there will probably be small burs around the edges of the letters.
- Control+click 'thin' to load it as a selection
- Choose Select > Inverse (Shift+Control+I)
- With 'chrome' active press delete
TIP: You may now want to open the Curves Adjustment layer and tweak it further.
To finish off I've added a trimmed glow to enhance the chrome effect.
- Duplicate the 'chrome' layer
- Name it 'glow'
- With 'glow' selected, lock transparent pixels (/) and fill the 'glow' layer with white.
- Unlock transparent pixels (/) and apply a Gaussian Blur to the 'glow' layer. I've chosen a blur of 3.
- Control+click the original chrome text layer to load it as a selection.
- Choose Select > Inverse (Shift+Control+I) to invert the selection
- Press Delete
There you have it, Chrome, ready to go!
Enjoy!
Pete Walsh
Magicpixel
