Simple Metalic Textures

Metallic textures can come in handy for many purposes, from making cool backgrounds for your web-page or desktop to adding borders to photos or cards you want to print. This tutorial will show you how to make a basic metallic texture. It assumes you are making a web-page background, but you can enter different dimensions if you like. This will produce a smooth, brushed looking metal. You can adjust many of the settings and the color to get something that exactly fits your needs.

Step 1
Open Photoshop. Select "File" from the menu and click "New."

Step 2

In the dialog that pops up, choose "Web" as the type of document and choose the size from the options offered. Click "OK."

Step 3
Click on the "Foreground" color at the bottom of the toolbar. In the dialog that appears, click in the color box and choose a medium gray. Click "OK."

Step 4
Select the "Paintbucket" tool from the toolbar.

Step 5
Select "Filter" from the menu and choose "Noise." From the options, choose "Add Noise."

Step 6
In the dialog that pops up, make the settings "Monochromatic" and "Uniform." Set the "Amount" to 25 and click "OK."

Step 7
Select "Filter" from the menu and choose "Blur." From the options, choose "Motion Blur."

Step 8
In the dialog that pops up, make the "Distance" 10 and the "Angle" 0. Click "OK." You'll see now that we are getting there.

Step 9
Select "Filter" from the menu and choose "Render." From the options, choose "Lighting Effects."

Step 10
This part is more complex. In the dialog that appears, go to the lighting "Preview" on the left and drag the light handles (the 4 dots at the edge of the circle) to approximate what I have done in the screen capture. The goal is to have the light coming from the lower right corner and spreading out fairly evenly. You don't want the other three corners extremely dark. Then in the controls on the right make the "Intensity" 30, the "Focus" 70, the "Gloss" 20 and the "Material" 70." Click "OK."

Step 11
Wow, thank God Step 10's done. And that's it. Here is what it should look like. These settings and the color used give you something like aluminum. Play around with the settings to get what to want, from gold to steel.