How to Create Super Rad 80's Chrome in Photoshop!

hey everyone brady from texturelabs.org here very excited about the tutorial we're going to get into a few people have asked me about chrome in photoshop so today we're going to get some serious over-the-top 80s chrome going and what's really cool about this look is that everything is totally adjustable so you can get all kinds of cool effects out of the same setup alright let's get into photoshop and get started [Music] all right getting started here with the photoshop document i'm working here at 4k resolution 3840x2160 but this will work at any resolution there is one important thing about the setup of this photoshop file i need this document to be set to 16 bit and you can set a document to 16 bit when you create it or i can change it here under image mode 16-bit all right i'm going to get started by selecting this text on top and quickly applying a few effects to it i know we're probably all here for the chrome but here in the effects menu i'm going to apply a gradient overlay i'll reset that to default then click on the gradient to customize it maybe make it run from a hot pink to kind of a bright violet color and next i'll select outer glow reset that to default maybe crank up the size to about 50 and make that match the violet color and finally i'll add a drop shadow just help set it off that other type with the opacity all the way up size it may be 100 and let's bring the spread up to ten percent make the shadow a little more dense and i can bring the distance to zero all right okay so on to the chrome i'm going to turn off this other text for now so we can really focus on the chrome then i'll select this 1984 text the first thing i'm going to do is click on the color of it in the properties tab and change the color of the text to exactly 50 percent gray next i'm going to go to my effects menu and apply a bevel and emboss effect let me reset that to default and i'll bring the size up i'm going to set it to 15 pixels then i'm going to crank the depth all the way up to the top at 1000 that makes this corner here a little more defined but to really get it sharp i'm going to turn on this contour option and i'm going to bring the range value all the way to zero and that gives it a pretty nice clean hard edge then back to the bevel and emboss options i'm going to bring the angle to 60 degrees get the light coming a little more from the side and i'll also bring the highlights to 20 and the shadows also to 20 percent okay all right and the next step is an important one i need to take this single layer and drag it into its own group folder what that does is to kind of isolate that bevel and emboss effect and treat this live effect more like a flattened piece of artwork so with that text in the groove folder i'm going to create a new layer and i want to be sure it doesn't go into the folder i'm just going to drag it out here on top i'm going to rename this layer i'll call it horizon then i'm going to use my gradient tool i'll hit d to make sure my colors are set to default then i'm going to drag a gradient from bottom to top just a tiny bit larger than the size of the letters then in the layers panel i'm going to hold the option or the alt key and i'll click in between the horizon layer and the group folder to create a clipping mask so the gradient just lives inside of the letters then i'm going to change this layer's blending mode to overlay and i'm going to bring the opacity to 50 percent all right next is kind of the engine of this whole chrome look here in the adjustment layers menu i'm going to create a gradient map adjustment layer and i'm also going to include this gradient map in the clipping mask group by option or alt clicking between these layers then in the properties tab for the gradient map i'm going to click on the gradient to customize it and i'm going to edit this gradient to create the basis for the chrome look so the basic jumping off point here is to drag these two values almost to the exact same spot in the center so you have this really hard line in the gradient then you're going to want to add a lighter color at the bottom and a darker color at the top so you kind of end up with two gradients in a row and this is really the jumping off point you can almost think of this gradient as the chrome environment turned sideways so up here i can start to introduce colors into the sky then maybe add some color into the horizon and kind of push these around to start to shape a look i've spent more time than you want to know messing with these gradients i'm going to load up some custom ones that i'll include a link to if you want to download these if i go to import and select this texture labs 80s chrome preset it'll bring in a folder of these presets i really tried to narrow it down to just a few but there are eight presets here and they all kind of look cool in different ways so let's use this one for now and we'll really start to bring this thing to life so what's happening here is that this adjustment layer is remapping all of these subtle variations in gray to the new colors in the gradient map that look more like reflections and what's cool is that we can continue to introduce details in these gray values and they're going to show up as details in the reflections so if i go back to this original text layer inside of the group folder and double click on the effects to reopen the effects panel i'm going to add another effect i'm going to use inner shadow then reset that to default and check out what happens when i start to push around the size of the inner shadow all it's doing is adding some darker gray into the letters but that's getting translated into this awesome bending of the colors in the gradient map so i'll leave the size at about 75 and bring the distance to zero and i'm also going to click on the contour tab and change it to this s-curve which i think makes it a bit more natural and then i'll maybe bring the opacity down a touch to 25 percent then one more effect i'm going to zoom way in here so we can really see how this works i'm going to add the stroke effect i'll reset it to default then i'm going to bring the size to be the same as the bevel and emboss effect 15 pixels and i'm going to change the fill type to gradient and the style to shape burst then i'm going to click on the gradient to make a quick edit and here i'll select this white value and set the location to 50 then add a color make it black and put that all the way at the end so i've got an even gradient from black to white to black okay and finally i'm going to set the blend mode to screen and i'm going to click to turn on the overprint option and bring the opacity back to 20 so this stroke effect is now adding a very light stripe of white along the contours of the letters here just enough to kind of bend the reflections along that beveled edge it's pretty subtle but i think it's a nice effect all right well the reflections are looking good and next i want to add a little bit of a glow to this whole thing however if i turn on the outer glow effect here and maybe try to make this a bluish color it doesn't really work because the glow is also getting recolored by this gradient map but what i can do is turn off the outer glow here and hit ok on these effects then select the group folder and apply the outer glow to the group folder and photoshop will actually apply any effect on the group folder after it has applied the gradient map or anything in the clipping mask i hope that makes sense so i'll make this outer glow on the group folder kind of a bluish color and i'll bring the size up to 120 and the opacity down to maybe just 25 all right well there's one more effect i'm going to apply here it's a little bit detailed but i think the detail will pay off i'm going to use bevel and emboss i'll reset it to default then set the size again to the same as earlier 15 pixels then i'm gonna turn on the contour tab again and same as before bring this range to zero but this time i'm also going to click on the little contour icon in the contour tab here i'm going to make one change here i'll click this bottom left point on the line and i'm going to change the input value to 98 percent all right then back in the bevel and emboss effect i'm going to make a few changes in the shading section first i'll turn off the use global light option then i'm going to set this altitude value to 80 degrees then i'm going to click on the gloss contour tab to customize it and what i want to do here is bring this starting value all the way up to 100 then i'm going to take the end point and set the output value to 99 and that creates this very very subtle sloping line at the top of the graph here okay finally i'm going to change the highlights to linear dodge mode and bring the opacity up to about 70 percent okay well that's a subtle detail but that's what it's all about right getting some awesome details in here and i think this little highlight on the edge really sharpens up the letters all right next i want to create some variation on this horizon line and give it the suggestion of kind of a landscape what i'm going to do is create a new layer here on top of the horizon layer but still underneath the gradient map then i'm going to use filter render clouds i'll take this layer and blur it a little bit with a gaussian blur i'll set it to 20 pixels then i'm going to change this layer's blending mode to overlay and i'll bring the opacity all the way back to five percent all right well this is looking pretty cool there are a few steps we can take from here to really elevate it but first if you're enjoying this tutorial so far do me a quick favor and hit the like button that just helps the video to get ranked so thank you for that as always more tutorials and free content from texture labs on the way so be sure to subscribe all right well let's take this look a little further remember everything here is still live and totally adjustable so i might take this text layer and transform it to give it a little bit more of an interesting shape before i do that i'm going to right click on the layer and select rasterize type sometimes when you start bending the shapes of live type it gets a little funky but i'll use command or ctrl t to transform then select this little box to do a warp transform and in the drop down i'm going to select arc upper then i can drag this top point down to give it kind of a cool shape and manually stretch the top back up to be the right proportion okay then i actually might want to adjust this horizon line too i can do that by selecting the horizon layer and i'll also use transform and this arch setting will let me bend the horizon a little bit i probably need to scale that up a little and kind of line it up to wherever it looks good all right well the chrome is coming together what's really going to elevate this are some lens flares so i'm going to copy a lens flare texture from texturelabs.org everything on the texture lab site is free including this lens flare which i'll link to i'll copy that paste it on top then set it to screen mode and i'll use command or control t to transform and i'm going to put this almost like it's a sun on the horizon inside the letters here and the gold color of this lens flare is kind of cool but i think i'll use command or control u for a hue saturation adjustment and i'll drag the hue value down to about negative 143 and give that kind of a more dramatic color all right then i'm going to use command or ctrl j to make a copy move that into another letter and maybe even make a few more of those so there's a lens flare in each letter i also want to add some little reflective glints on the edges for that i'm going to use kind of a simpler star kind of a lens flare this one looks kind of blurry but it actually works really well scaled down i'll paste in a copy of this one set the blending mode to screen then use command or ctrl t to transform and this i'm going to scale way down and just line it up with one of the bright spots on the edges then make a few copies of that maybe drag one to each letter all right looking very shiny let me turn on this top type layer and remember everything about this chrome effect is still basically live so i could always come back to this gradient map adjustment layer and still try out a few of these different chrome gradients maybe land on one that matches the overall color scheme a little better then i'm going to get something kind of 80s-ish in the background i'll grab a copy of this starry night sky texture then paste it all the way down here over the background maybe move that over a little bit all right so now that i think all the pieces are in place i'm going to do one final overall treatment what i'm going to do is go to the very top layer and make a merged copy of the entire image using the shortcut command option shift e or on a pc that's ctrl alt shift e then i'm going to use filter camera raw filter and there's obviously a lot of room to experiment with the final look here the only things i'm going to do are bring the dehaze value up to about 15 and also the vibrance up to about 15. and if i toggle a preview on and off that just makes the whole image a little punchier and finally down here in the effects section i want to add some grain i might go a little heavier on the grain i think that works well for the style i'll set the grain amount to 30 and then i'm also going to click the little arrow for more options here and bring the size up to 60 and the roughness also up to 60 which actually softens out the image a little bit but i think it kind of glues the whole thing together with that grainy texture all right well that wraps it up the finished image 80s ultra chrome in photoshop i hope you've enjoyed this tutorial and that you'll make something ridiculously shiny if so please do hit that like button and if you create something and post it online tag me in it at texturelabs i always love seeing you guys's work as always more tutorials on the way so be sure to subscribe thanks to the texture lab patreon supporters and thank you for watching i'll see you next time

Channel: Texturelabs

Views: 96,549

Keywords: adobe photoshop, photoshop, photoshop tutorials, adobe photoshop tutorials, photoshop text effects, photoshop effects, photoshop bevel and emboss, photoshop chrome, photoshop chrome text, photoshop chrome logo, 80s chrome text, 80s chrome text photoshop, photoshop 80s effect, photoshop chrome letters, silver text photoshop, silver, photoshop graphic design, 1980s text effect, 1980s photoshop, metallic text effect, photoshop metallic effect, photoshop silver text effect, 2021

Id: CFynG3wIn-8

Length: 13min 42sec (822 seconds)

Published: Mon Dec 14 2020