Adobe Photoshop Tutorials: Chromage

In case you don't feel like scouring around for a background image, you may download the file I used in this tutorial. Any type of photo with clouds or water usually works well for making chrome, however I used a picture of skyscrapers. Make sure that your text or other object you wish to apply chrome effect to is solid black in color.

Start by making sure your object layer is selected (Chrome in the example). Add a Bevel and Emboss effect by hitting the button. This adjustment will the apply the brightest white shine that will effect the top left edges of your object. Set your settings similar to what I have used (click the image to the left to see). It is important to pay attention to the Glass Contour setting. As you can see, I changed mine a little bit. Feel free to work your chrome-making mojo on this one. If you decide later that you do not like the contour setting you made, you can always come back and change it.

While still in the Bevel and Emboss effect, click on the word Contour in the left menu to select it and display the additional Contour Options. Set your options similar to the way I have (see image). This effect allows subtle highlights to be added to the bottom edges of your object.

Next, click Satin effect in the left menu. This step is the most difficult, and dare I say thrilling, step of the whole process. Here you get apply the level of detail for the main chrome effect. You may click the image to the left to see all the settings I used. Modify the Contour via the Contour Editor to suite your particular metallic taste.

Now it is time to increase the effect by adding Inner Shadow and Inner Glow effects the same way you applied the last two steps. These two effects serve to darken your object and make the lighting effects even more realistic. My options for both effects can be seen by clicking the two images to the left.

Just incase you are not already tired of applying Layer Styles, we will apply two more. Click Drop Shadow and Outer Glow to add a nice dark shadow around your object. Like the last step, you can see my options by clicking the images to the left.

Looking at the the image, you could probably stop now with a fairly decent chrome object. We will continue, however to make it even better. Load your object layer (Chrome) as a selection by right-clicking it. Then go to the Channels Palette and create a new channel. Make sure white is the foreground color (it should be) and fill the selection by hitting Alt+Backspace. Hit Ctrl+A to select everything and go Filter>Blur>Gaussian Blur. Blur by approximately 5 pixels. Hit Ctrl+D to deselect when you are done. We need to make the channel into an external file to be used as a displacement map, so right-click your new channel and select Duplicate Channel. Choose New under the Document menu. Save your file in a location where you remember it.

Go back to your original document. In the Layers Palette, drag the reflection image layer (Layer 1 in the example) above the object layer (Chrome). We need to add some extra white around the border of the image to produce a stronger distortion in the following step, so go Image>Canvas Size and increase the width and height by 20 pixels a piece. Grab the Paint Bucket Tool, select white as your foreground color, and fill in the new blank area (which will probably appear white) around your reflection image.

Blur the reflection image by going Filter>Blur>Gaussian Blur. I chose 4.5 pixels. Now, go Filter>Distort>Glass. Load the file you previously saved as the Texture. I used a Distortion of 16 and Smoothness of 5.

My object text was not pefectly aligned in the example, so I had to move the reflection image layer (Layer 1) around to make it properly align with the layer underneath. If you need to do this, lower the opacity of your top layer and move it with the Move Tool. It doesn't have to be perfectly aligned, but my example needed a little editing. Once that is done, make the opacity 100% again and Alt-click the border between the reflection image layer and object layer to make a clipping group. Double-click the name of the object layer in the Layers Palette to bring up our friend the Layer Style box. Check the box called Blend Interior Effects as a Group and uncheck Blend Clipped Layers as a Group. Apply this change and your image will get noticibly darker. Play with the opacity setting of the top layer until your image looks pleasing. I settled for 35% opacity.

Now your effect is essentially complete. At this point, it is a good idea to go back and tweak the numerous Layer Style settings on your object layer to make it look even better. I also added a blue background layer with lighting effects for dramatic effect. The chrome effect gets progressively better with larger resolution objects, but I would say the example looks pretty chromodelic.

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