Doug's 5.5 Photoshop User Cover - Con't - Page 10

STEP EIGHT: Press Command-L (PC: Control-L) to bring up Levels again. Grab the TOP right Input slider, and drag it over to the left until the readout up top shows 140, then click OK. Deselect by pressing Command-D (PC: Control-D).

If It's Metal, Sharpen The Living Heck Out Of It First off, I had to say heck, because there could be kids reading this book and some of them might be really smart toddlers, so you can never be too careful. One thing that I've found (that you might find) helpful is that when you have a chrome or metallic image, you can apply the Unsharp Mask filter with very high Amount settings (like 300 to 500) and it looks just fine. In fact, sometimes I ll apply Unsharp Mask to chrome type three or four times in a row (with Amount settings around 100 to 150). Those hard edges just soak up the sharpening. The main things you need to look out for are halos or weird unwanted colors which can start to creep into your edges. Otherwise, sharpen till the cows come home (if you don't have cows, just keep sharpening until someone yells, Stop! :)

STEP NINE: Go under the Layer menu, under Layer Style, and Choose Bevel and Emboss. Increase the Depth to 500% and the Size to 8 (for high-res images, increase the Depth to 800% and the Size to 25).

STEP TEN: In the Layers palette, create a new layer. Drag this new layer just below your text layer, then click back on your text layer. Now press Command-E (PC: Control-E) to merge these two layers together.

STEP ELEVEN: Press Command-M (PC: Control-M) to bring up the Curves dialog box. You'll see a straight line (the curve) at a 45 ° angle. Click once about 25% from the bottom left to add a point, and drag it upward (you re going to add four points to create the curve shown here). When your curve looks like the one above, click OK.

	STEP TWELVE: Press Command-L to bring up the Levels dialog box. Grab the TOP right Input slider, and drag it over to the left until the readout up top shows 225 (this brightens the chrome), then click OK.
	STEP THIRTEEN: Go under the Filter menu, under Sharpen, and choose Unsharp Mask. Drag the Amount all the way over to 500, put the Radius at 1, Threshold at 10, and click OK. (Note: For high-res images, you might apply this filter twice to really get the effect.)
	STEP FOURTEEN: Go under the Layer menu, under Layer Style, and choose Drop Shadow. Increase the Size to 10, Distance to 10, and click OK to complete the effect. (Note: for high- res, 300-ppi or higher images, increase the Size to 45 and the Distance to 30.)

Doug's 5.5 Photoshop User Cover - Page 9
Photoshop 6 Down and Dirty Tricks
Reflective Chrome - Page 11