Photoshop Text Effects: Gold Plated Text

Step 5: Duplicate The Text Layer

Use the keyboard shortcut Ctrl+J (Win) / Command+J (Mac) to quickly duplicate the text layer. You should now have three layers in your Layers palette:

We're going to be working on the text copy layer throughout the next few steps.

Step 6: Add A Gradient Overlay To The Text

With the text copy layer selected, click on the Layer Styles icon at the bottom of the Layers palette:

Select Gradient Overlay from the list:

This brings up the Layer Style dialog box set to the Gradient Overlay options:

We're going to set the colors for our gradient, so click directly on the gradient preview area (circled in red above) to bring up the Gradient Editor.

Step 7: Select A Lighter And Darker Gold Color For The Gradient

When the Gradient Editor appears, click on the left color marker to select it, and then click on the Color swatch to choose a color for the left side of the gradient:

This brings up Photoshop's Color Picker. You can use whichever gold colors you prefer, but if you want to follow along, I've entered a color of R:247, G:238, B:173 which gives us a light gold color (I cheated and sampled the color from a photo of a gold coin):

Click OK to accept the color and exit out of the Color Picker. Then, back in the Gradient Editor, click on the right color marker to select it, and then click back on the Color swatch:

When the Color Picker comes back up, enter R:193, G:172, B:81 to give us a darker gold color (also sampled from the gold coin):

Click OK to exit out of the Color Picker once again, and click OK to exit out of the Gradient Editor as well.

Your text should now look like this:

Don't exit out of the Layer Style dialog box yet. We have more to do.