Photoshopping Bronze Text

The discovery of Bronze was important to humankind, since it helped to create better metal objects, especially weapons, than previously possible. Even though it was more brittle than steel, it was much durable than the copper and stone predecessors.

Today, we’re going to create some Bronze from scratch using our alchemist friend, Photoshop.

Step 1

For starters create a new document. I used a new RGB document with dimensions of 1000 px by 500 px, resolution of 150 with white background.

Next I created the word Bronze, using Times New Roman in Bold. The size was 100pt.
When the bronze effect is applied to serif fonts it looks much nicer to me. Well the taste depends and you can use any font and play along. You can use any color for text since we’ll be changing it later using a gradient overlay.

Step 2

Let’s apply the necessary effects. We’ll begin with the drop shadow.

Step 3

Add a gradient overlay. I used the colors ‘A2893B‘ and ‘ EFDC92‘ for this.

Step 4

Here comes the bevel & emboss effect for the 3D look. Using the default settings is okay. But since we are looking forward to getting better results, let’s play with the controls.
In the shading section, change the colors of the highlight mode to ‘CBB164′ and the shadow mode to ‘ FEE39A’.

Step 5

Now it’s almost complete. Add a 1px stroke using the color ‘6f6329‘.

Step 6

We’re going to add a brushed look to our bronze text.
Crate a new layer and fill it with any color. Name the layer as ‘Brushed’.
Change the background and foreground colors to default by pressing ‘D’.
Now render some fibers using a variance of 15.0. Crank up the Strength all the way up to 64.0 and press OK.  

Note: The reason for filling the layer with a color before rendering the fibers is, unlike clouds, fibers cannot be rendered on an empty layer.  It doesn’t matter what color you fill the layer with, but keep an eye on the background and foreground colors, as it affects the color of fibres.

Keeping the ‘Brushed’ layer highlighted and apply a motion blur. Use an angle of 90 degrees and push the distance slider all the way up.  
Click OK. You have some gray colored lines above your text now.

Press Ctrl + T to go to free transform mode. Rotate the layer 45 degrees and drag the handles until you completely cover the Bronze text.
Ctrl + click on the text layer thumbnail to select the text area and highlight the Brushed layer. Press the ‘Add layer mask‘ button at the bottom of the layer palette. Now the text area should be covered with gray lines.

On the ‘Brushed’ layer, lower the opacity to 15% and the fill to 90%.

I also added a maroon colored background of the colour ’790000′ and a gradient to enhance the look of the text. Your layers palette may look like this now.

Voila!! Now you have a nice brushed look to your Bronze text. Here’s the end result…

You can also add gradients and other what-not to add realism. The key is not to be afraid and playing with controls. That is the key to learning Photoshop. The possibilities are endless.

Remember, you can always download the PSD file for this tutorial below in the Members Get More panel.

Until we meet again with another tutorial, Adios!