We will show you how to make Stainless Steel based text that looks shiny and realistic. The tutorial purposely takes a different step from normal text tutorials to show you how to make your text more appealing. Here is the final result:


Firstly make a new document in Photoshop. The size I choose was 500×400px.

Now add some Clouds.

Now add some Noise.


We can now do a Motion Blur, which will give us the polished aluminum effect.


If you did the following correct it should look similar to mine.

Ok, lets add the text now.

Remember to pick a bolder, bigger font because if it’s too small it won’t show the effect very good.

Now place where you like the effect the most. I picked this spot.

Ok, holding Ctrl click on the text layer, and this should happen to the text.

Now click on the brushed aluminum layer then right click on the text and click on Select Inverse then hit delete.

You can just delete the text layer now, as we don’t need it.

If this was done correctly it should look similar to this.

Now right click on your layer and choose Blending Options.

Now add the following.

Inner Shadow

Outer Glow

Bevel and Emboss

Gradient Overlay

And you are finished.

Here is my final result.