Photoshopping Sparkling Gold Text

Gold, one of the most sought after metals in the world, is used in coins and jewelry, as a store of value, electronics, medicinal purposes and in many other possible ways you can think of. Entire civilizations have been wiped out because of the greed for gold. Even today many people fight to own this precious metal.

But since we’re talking about phostoshopping gold text, I’d stop my rambling and let’s get some work done.

Step 1

Create a new file with the required dimensions. I used 750 x 536 px file with a resolution of 150. And of course it is RGB.

The new file

Step 2

Let’s create some text. I typed ‘GOLDEN’ using Times New Roman font. The size used here is 75 points. Again don’t worry about the color that you use, since we’re gonna replace it with a gradient overlay.

Step 3

Now the fun part begins. Let’s apply some layer styles. I applied a drop shadow.

After adding the drop shadow

Step 4

Next effect in the line is the Bevel & emboss effect. Increase the Depth field to 150%, Size to 20px and Soften to 2px. Use an angle of 50 degrees and at an Altitude of 0. The Gloss contour must be changed to ‘Half Round’ and turn on Anti alias. I kept the Highlight mode as it is, which is Screen. But I changed the color to Metallic gold (D4AF37) and bumped the opacity to 90%.

After adding the BnE style

Step 5

Next comes a bit of a tricky part, creating the gold gradient. Go to the Gradient overlay options and click on the gradient to edit it.

I used the following colors respectively. Gold (FFD700), Old gold (CFB53B), sunglow (FFCC33), golden poppy (FCC200) and golden yellow (FFDF00).

Applying the gradient...

You can arrange the color stops according to your desire. When you’re done with crating the gradient, it is a good idea to save it for future use as it saves the hassle of creating it from the scratch. You can see that I have changed the angle of the gradient slightly, to 85 degrees instead of the default 90. I won’t go explaining as to why I did it, it just appealed to my eye than the default.

Note: There are more gold related colors you can use on the gradient. But I used only a few. If you’re interested you can use the following colors as well. As I say always, experiment and see what appeals to your eye.

Metallic gold – D4AF37,  satin sheen gold – CBA135, Vegas gold – C5B358, golden brown – 996515.

Step 6

Then I applied a single pixel stroke with golden brown. I changed the position to Centre.

Single pixel Golden brown stroke...

Almost gold...

Step 7

Now the work with text is done. But since the text doesn’t standout on a white background, I applied a nice background. I created a new layer and filled it with Royal Purple (6B3FA0). Now the text we crated stands out nicely.

But since I felt that applying a plain colored background is not enough, I used a rarely used filter in Photoshop on a new layer filled with white. I changed the layer name to ‘BG Texture’. Change the foreground to white and background to black. Go to Filter > Texture > Texturizer. You’ll be presented with a huge dialogue box.

Filter > Texture > Texturizer

Now if you get an error message at this point, it’s because the BG Texture layer is empty. For Texturizer to take effect, the layer must have some pixels on it. Fill it with white.

TIP: To fill a layer there are few commands you can use. One is the Edit > Fill or Shift + F5. From the Fill dialog box, you can chose from a wide variety of commands. But if you need to fill the layer or selection with the foreground color, simply press Alt + Del and to fill with the background color press Ctrl + Del or Ctrl + Backspace.

I changed the Texture to Sandstone, Scaling to 111% and Relief to 15%. Now you’ll be presented with something like this.

Where did the purple background go???? ;(

Now change the layer blend mode to ‘Multiply’. If you think the texture is too  strong, try changing the Fill an Opacity values. Here’s what I got.

Change blend mode to "Multiply" & play with Opacity & Fill... You get a textured background...

Step 8

Again this step is not needed. But I thought of letting you know something new. But some of you might already know this. What would you do if you need to apply the same layer styles, with same values, what would you do. Earlier what I used to do is that. But there is something much simpler. Copy the layer styles and paste them on to the required layer! Here’s how we do it.

I typed the word LETTERS below our GOLDEN text, using 12 point, Times New Roman and I increased the tracking value to 750 (you can locate the tracking value below the leading values on Character palette). You can see as we increase the tracking value, the space between letters begin to expand.

Leading & Tracking on Type Palette

Now we are going to copy and paste the layer styles. Right click on the GOLDEN text layer. At the bottom of the pop-up menu, you’ll find three commands, Copy Layer style, Paste layer style and Clear layer style. Chose the first, Copy layer style. Go to the LETTERS text layer, right click and select Paste layer style. There you are! The layer style is copied as it is to the layer.

Layer Style copied...

But you’ll see instead of the gold color, there is a red/ brown tinge to the text. The reason for this is that the golden brown pixel we applied to the previous text layer. I turned off the stroke option for this text layer, by turning off the “eye” icon next to the Stroke layer style, on the layer palette.

Turn off the Stroke layer style for Letters text layer...

Step 9

If you like a to add a bit of a sparkle to the letters follow these steps. Create a new layer on top of the layer stack and name it sparkle. Select the Brush tool (you can press ‘B’ on the keyboard to activate it) and activate the ‘Assorted Brushes’ library (don’t worry about the availability of this brush set since it comes with the Photoshop). Browse through the brushes and select the one named, Starburst – Small.

Starburst - small

TIP: It’s always a good practice to name the layers. When you have loads of unnamed layers, finding the correct layer is like going through hell…

Size the brush tip to 40px and place the stars randomly on the edges of the text where the gold color is brighter and where the light is more intense. And I forgot to tell you that the foreground color should be set to white.

And there you have it. Nice looking gold text.

Sometimes you may feel that the letters do not have the gold like effect that you wanted it to have. In that case you can try adding an extra layer style, Satin. Play with the controls and see how it can be used. I have applied the Satin style to the text as an added measure. Here’s how the final outcome looks like…

Finished product... What do you think?

But if you still feel bad about the looks, don’t worry. My next tutorial again would be on creating golden text, but with a twist. We’d be using one of the dreaded features in Photoshop to do this! But I won’t be telling what it is, since it’ll spoil all the fun.

Until then master this technique. It’s easy and will be sufficient for most tasks. Until next time, Adios!