Smoothe Chrome Styling Effect

We'll start off with a shape with which we are going to apply our chrome texture. For our lesson today, I'll choose to make a chromed out version Photoshop's Flubber shape. (You could use anything, even on text.) Let's go ahead and fill that with a nice grey, #c0c0c0. I went ahead and gave it a nice little drop shadow as well.



Now, we add ze Stroke to the Chrome Flubber. Leave it with the default with of 3px, but change the Fill Type to Gradient, and choose a nice white to grey to white radial gradient. Or, you can copy my settings, ya lazy bastard.



Next, we add a Gradient Overlay with the same gradient we used for the stroke, except keep it linear. You shouldn't need the reference, but here are the settings for the overlay.



Now comes the tricky part. Choose the Bevel and Emboss blending option, and check Contour below it as well. Go back to the Bevel and Emboss settings, and set the Highlight and Shadow Modes to Screen, 25% Opacity, and #FFFFFF. Make your Gloss Contour lines similar to what I have on my bevel, and go to town with the depth and size sliders to find your desired chrome effect.

Apply a Reflection to Your Text

Ever wanted to mimic that reflective text effect you see in many sleek advertising images? Well here is how to do it, step by step!

Create a new image (300x300 pixels) and choose your text application tool. (Set font to Impact, 48pt)

Go ahead and enter some text, and when you're done, create a duplicate of your new text layer (drag this layer onto the new layer icon, it will automatically create a clone of the layer you dragged) and slide it down to align the top of this cloned layer with the bottom of the original layer. Before we proceed, lower the opacity of this layer to 25%. Your image will look like this.


Now, to make it believable. Go to the reflection layer's styles, and apply a gradient overlay to it. Leave the overlay with its default settings, only click the checkbox to reverse your gradient. Voila, instant reflective text!