Photoshop Text Effects: Easy Plastic Text with Layer Styles
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Step 6: Apply The "Bevel and Emboss" Layer Style
Next, we're going to add a "Bevel and Emboss" effect to our text, so click directly on the words Bevel and Emboss in the list of Layer Styles on the left of the Layer Style dialog box. Again, make sure you click directly on the words and don't just click inside the checkbox:
The middle column of the Layer Style dialog box will change to the Bevel and Emboss options. The first thing we want to do here is load a new "Gloss Contour", so go down to where it says "Gloss Contour" in the "Shading" options and click on the down-pointing arrow to the right of the contour preview thumbnail:
Then click on the right-pointing arrow in the top right corner of the contour selection box that pops up:
Then select Contours at the bottom of the list that appears to load a new set of contours which are not available to us by default:
Photoshop will ask you if you want to replace the original contours with these new ones or simply add the new ones to the bottom of the list. Click on Append:
You'll see the new contours added to the bottom of the originals. To make things simpler for us, rather than me trying to describe the shape of the contour to click on, click once again on that right-pointing arrow in the top right corner and select Large List from the options so we can see both a thumbnail preview of the contour and the name of the contour beside each thumbnail:
Now that we can see the actual names of each contour, scroll down the list until you come to the one named Ring-Triple and double-click on it to select it:
With the "Ring-Triple" contour selected, let's change the rest of the Bevel and Emboss options:
These are the settings I used for my text. You may need to change them slightly depending on the font you're using and the size of your text. Starting from the top and working our way down, increase the Depth to around 131% and the Size to around 18 pixels. In the "Shading" options, set the Angle to 120° if it isn't already, and set the Altitude to 60°. Make sure Anti-aliased is checked beside the contour preview thumbnail. Increase the Highlight Mode Opacity all the way to 100%, and finally, lower the Shadow Mode Opacity down to 0%.
Your text should now look something like this:
