Making Brushed Metal

[graficalicus]

Here’s a quick way to create a brushed metal look. I’m using sort of a bronze color, but it can be used on a grey color (use a darker grey for iron and lighter grey for platinum or aluminum), gold, rust, etc.

First, create a selection. I’m starting with a new document, but it can be used on an existing document, too. I just used the rectangular marqueee to pull out a rectangle for this example.

Fill the selection with the base metal color of your choice. If you’re working on an existing image, create a new layer and add your fill there.

Create a new layer, and name it “Noise”. With the selection still active (if you put your selection on its own layer, <Ctrl>/<Cmd>+Click that layer’s thumbnail to select it), fill it with white. Now click Filters>Noise>Add Noise and click on the options Gaussian and Monochromatic. Adjust the slider to get a goodly amount of noise in your selection.

With the noise layer active with the selection active, click Filters>Blur>Motion Blur and adjust the angle to a diagonal that looks good, and adjust the slider to the point that the noise is almost invisible.

Change the Noise layer’s blend mode to Lighten, and adjust the opacity if necessary (you might want to also try Multiply blend mode if you’re working with a lighter colored metal).

Finally, I added a reflection gradient to its own layer at the top and adjusted opacity & blend for a reflection. My final result is below:



It works pretty well on text, too.

For this, I used the Handy Actions pack, choosing the “Stroke Selection New Layer” action. I made a selection of my text by <Ctrl>+Clicking it's thumbnail in the Layers palette and used the options 4 px, black when the Stroke dialog opened. This placed a 4px stroke, in black, at the top of my layer stack.

Then I ran the same action again, only this time choosing 1px, White. This put a 1px White stroke at the top of my layer stack, resulting in the image below:

[msbrad]

Thnak you Graffi for this tutorial.
m

[Cmcburnett]

Oh, I like that look. Thanks for the tutorial. I will add it to my notebook which use quite often.

[ladybug]

I just love this simple tutorial, it can be used on so many things other than text. I thought maybe some new members might like to try it. Thanks Graffi one of my favorites.

[coaster]

Nice!! I like the added touches.