Steel Text

1. Make a new image with a resolution of 72 dpi. The size should be big enough to fit your text.

2. Select the gradient tool (Alt + Click on the paintbucket tool). Click the "Edit Gradient" box in the options bar and make sure the silver gradient is selected. The silver gradient is not a defualt gradient, make sure you load it from your Photoshop Gradients folder. The file is Metals.grd.

3. Grab the Horizontal Type Tool (T) and put in your text. Color of the text does not really matter, it will end up silver no matter what color you use.

4. Next, we want to put a drop shadow and bevel on our image. Do this by going to Layer > Layer Style > Drop Shadow. Your drop shadow settings should look like this:

Your bevel and emboss settings should look like this:

Your image should now look like this:

5. Create a new layer and hit D and X on your keyboard to reset and switch the active foreground and background colors. Pick the gradient tool once again and set it to a radial gradient in the options bar. Click and drag the gradient like this:

6. Next, go to Layer > Group With Previous (Ctrl + G). Your image should now look like this:

7. Finally, Ctrl + Click on the type layer to make it a selection. Go to Select > Modify > Contract. Set the value as 2 and click OK. Go to the layers palette and click the "Create New Fill or Adjustment Layer" button and choose Gradient Map on the menu that pops out. In the Gradient Map dialog, choose the Silver gradient and click OK.

Here is a look at my final image: