Illusions of Glass and Plastic: Bevel Tricks

To start, I have a 2 layer image (white background, 50% gray text).

I hope that you are becoming familiar with Layer Styles in Photoshop 6, as we will use these to turn our type into some form of plastic or glass. I'm going into this with little idea what the end result will be, it makes the process a bit more interesting that way!

On the type layer, I'm going to apply a bevel. As I am going for a glassy effect I want a soft bevel. With this in mind, my initial settings are:

Style: Inner Bevel
Technique: Smooth
Depth: 250%
Direction: Up
Size: 12
Soften: 5

All other settings are at default. Here's the image now:

Now that the shape of the type is established, it is time to work on the shading. This is where things start coming together.

The trick here concerns the 'Shadow Mode'. You will see the Photoshop default setting is 75% black, mode set to multiply. Also the highlight mode is set to 75% white. Let's bump that up to 100%. Change the Shadow mode color to something very light, though not white. My color number for this example is #FFE5BC. Also, I'm changing the mode from multiply to screen. I've changed the opacity to 88. Here's the result:

Sorta needs something, doesn't it? Let's add some color. I'm adding a Color Overlay with #FF7200 set to 75%. Now I'm duplicating the type layer and setting it to overlay. I'm continuing to work on the original layer, however.

If you have been viewing the styles that shipped with Photoshop, you may have noticed that right now your type resembles the effect in the 'Glass Rollover' styles pack. Those styles are another excellent resource for learning shading, and I strongly urge you to get into the settings those effects apply. They will teach you much, Young Grasshopper.

As I continue, I'm applying a Gradient Overlay to our original text layer with the following settings:

I am also applying a Stroke using a gradient. Here is the image:

Remember the duplicated layer? Create a layer beneath that one and reselect the duplicated layer. Merge down, change the mode to overlay. On the original type layer I've moved the bevel slider to 16.

So is the image transparent? Try dropping an image below the top layer, and set the image to overlay as well. Here's mine:

This example has been fairly quick just to give you some basics. I have created actions that take things to a much higher level, and I'm including 2 of them with this article. You may find more similar on my website

Here's one of my personal favorites: