This Adobe Photoshop tutorial takes the simple “create metal text effect in Photoshop” that thousands of people teach all over the web and turns it on it’s head! Adding polishes, shines, motion blurs, and oh yes… NINJA STARS. It’s a must read.

Select the text tool (T) and type “KING.”  We are using the Billboard font.  This isn’t a free font but comes with a lot of PCs and Macs.  But if you don’t have it, you can use whichever font you think it comparable.  Set the font to a color of #838383

Set a “bevel and emboss” to the text with these settings:

Now we need to rasterize our text layer by creating a new layer (pressing ctrl/cmd + shift + N), then link the new layer with the text layer, and press ctrl/cmd + E to merge it. This will rasterize our text layer.
Now we need to bring up the curves window to adjust the image.  Press ctrl/cmd + M to open the curves menu, then enter these settings:

Go Image > Adjustments > Variations, set the slider at the top to one notch from the bottom, and then click once on the ‘Current Pick’ box, once on the ‘More Blue’ box, and then once on the ‘More Green’ box – now click OK. Press Command + M on your keyboard again and make a curve with these settings:

Select the text layer and push Shift + Command + U on the keyboard to desaturate the layer.  Now we’re going to add a drop shadow by going to Layer > Layer Style > Drop Shadow and clicking OK. Make sure it has the following settings:

While still in the layer styles palette select Inner Shadow with the following settings:

Now lets add some more bevel and emboss.  Enter the following settings:

For the next stage, we need to create a selection – press Command + Left Mouse Click on the text layer in the layers palette. This will select the letter/text – now go Select > Modify > Contract and enter a value of 3. Now go Select > Feather and enter 3 again.

Now, at the bottom of the layers palette, click the ‘Create New Fill or Adjustment Layer‘ button – a circle half black and half white – and click ‘Gradient Map‘. Click the arrow at the side of the dialogue box that appears see image below, and load the file ‘Metals’.

Apply the gradient in the bottom left (black > white > black – “Steel Bar”), then set this layer’s blending mode as ‘overlay‘.

Now we have the awesome metal effect!  Now we’re going to start adding the pro modifications.  Go to Filter > Liquify and with the following settings… click and drag the text how you want it to look:

Do this same thing for the word “Tutz” and here is what we’ve come up with:

Now lets add some other cool effects like NINJA STARS!: