Plastic Jelly Styles

Sep 14th in Text Effects by Collis
In this tutorial, we'll be using layer styles to make a plastic gel-type style that you can easily apply to text and shapes. You can download the PSD file from the link at the bottom of the tutorial to just copy+paste the styles.

Author: Collis

Hello! I started PSDTUTS because years ago reading Photoshop tutorials was how I got into design. I hope the site helps and inspires others! You can find me on Twitter!

Step 1:

BACKGROUND LAYER

We start as always with a background gradient. I've used a Radial Gradient with two shades of the exact same brown that this site uses. The exact color codes are:

Foreground color - #2f2520
Background color - #1e1916

Step 2:

Now in a nice delectable green, we write a word. I've written 'Jelly' and used the font "Gill Sans Ultra Bold." Bolder fonts are good for this sort of effect because there is more room to actually do stuff with the styles.

Step 3:

So now we right-click on the layer and choose Blending Options to start adding styles. First we add a drop shadow to lift the letters off the background and then an inner shadow. Later on when we add highlights, this shadow will contrast nicely with them.

Step 4:

To create the highlights, we use Bevel and Emboss. The default settings for bevel and emboss suck, so don't use those. I've moved some things around and if you download the sample PSD, you'll see what I mean. The highlights need to be shades of green to make it look like light is bouncing around inside the letters.

Step 5:

Next we add a Gradient Overlay and a Stroke. The gradient gives a bit of light and dark to the letters and the stroke helps seal it off at the edges.

Step 6:

Now the neat thing about this style is you can just change the coloring on each set of blending options and you have a new color for the style. Here I've written a second word and applied the style there too but this time with red settings.

Step 7:

To finish it off, create a new layer above and then hold down Ctrl and click on the layer to select it.

Step 8:

Then go to Select > Modify > Contract and use a value of 4 pixels to shrink the selection.

Step 9:

Now we need a gradient that goes from white to transparency which you can choose by switching to the gradient tool and using the little thumbnail thing up at the top left (shown in the image)

Step 10:

Using that gradient, draw a gradient in the selection from white to transparency.

Step 11:

Then make an elliptical selection using the selection tool and hit delete as shown. This will make the highlight you just drew suddenly stop and consequently look very plasticky.

Step 12:

And that's it! I've repeated the same highlight steps on the word 'Style' as well.

Sample PSD

Download the PSD for this tutorial

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User Comments

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  1. Evilpig September 16th

    Great site, hope you stick around !


  2. maxime September 19th

    is it possible to do this with PS element 4.0?


  3. Carrie September 20th

    These are awesome tutorials. These are things that I have been looking for all over the web, to have them all in one place is awesome!!!


  4. jaycee September 22nd

    great tutorial, thanks mate!


  5. swagg September 29th

    it’s peanut butter jelly time! it’s peanut butter jelly time! it’s peanut butter jelly time! it’s peanut butter jelly time! it’s peanut butter jelly time! it’s peanut butter jelly time! it’s peanut butter jelly time!


  6. yuhh September 29th

    i love you psdtuts :)
    no one gives .pds file
    but you do :D


  7. Pero October 2nd

    This is amazing,

    Is there anyway that I can have some of your links on my website? There are so many people who struggles to get things and designs done.

    I have been referring them to your site already.


  8. Furzer October 7th

    psdtuts.com its GREAT ;)
    http://www.quee.de


  9. Daniel October 7th

    Hey Collins, youre tutorials are really nice. Im considering to show them to my teacher, so that he could start teaching the rest of the class :P

    My main question is;
    is it possible that you could send me Gill sans Ultra Bold ?

    Thank you


  10. HARPAL SINGH PATTI October 9th

    this site help me alot. thanks, you all those are working for i give you a lots of my beless thanks, boss


  11. Peter Tolstrup October 10th

    Really nice tutorial. I would be better with screen shots of your layer style settings though.


  12. cre8ive pixel October 16th

    sweet! great tut once again


  13. Egypt Web Design October 18th

    GREAT great great tutorial thanks


  14. Swany October 25th

    Great tutorial again! Thanks!

    I’ve been looking for a special not to cheesy font treatment for my new Web Design company and this is going to work out perfect!

    Squircle Designs, Web Design .. new site with new logo (thanks to this tutorial) up soon!

    Thanks!

    Swany
    Swany’s Personal Portfolio Site


  15. Yash October 26th

    Don’t rasterize the layer .It make PSD unchangeable.

    anyways nice tut :)


  16. Jake T October 28th

    @ Swany: Squircle Designs website is probably one of the worst eyesores I have ever seen. You might want to bring the graphics up to 2007 instead of 2001.


  17. Captain Kirk November 2nd

    I have an eval copy of Photoshop CS2…..

    Can’t seem to get the layer selection to work right… can’t get to the contoured selection like you have it, and can’t apply the gradient to the copied layer without rasterizing…. What are the details I’m missing ?????

    thanks


  18. swany November 11th

    @ Jake T - Riiiiight… nice to see you have nothing to do these days…


  19. Pravin November 21st

    Nice tuts….


  20. Samantha December 3rd

    I’m with Captain Kirk. I can selected the boxed text, but not the contour of the typeface. Any tips there for a CS1 user?


  21. Gray December 13th

    I’m stuck on step 7.

    I don’t understand what you mean, I made a new layer, then I ctrl + clicked it, and it didn’t select it like on yo ur picture

    http://psdtuts.com/tutorials/4_Jelly/7.jpg

    Do I click on the cancas or the layer? I did both, but it wont select it. Please reply


  22. Nicole December 19th

    I’m with Gray. I can create a new layer, but when I try to go to Select> Modify the selection is grayed out. I must have done something wrong…


  23. dabeatros December 20th

    hey collis, fantastic work. I am a brand new user to photoshop and when I saw the cool stuff you created I thought I should give it a go. I am now about to create my own logo for my business and company. Money saved!

    and for those of you stuck at step 7, it seems you have to click on the little box next to the layer name and it highlights the active pixels on that layer. Now for me to figure out how to make that bloody eclipse, the select tool just selects the whole image!

    anyway collis, you are a legend


  24. phastel January 21st

    really nice tutorial! i love your site! keep on rockin’ dude!


  25. bratwurst January 30th

    slick!!


  26. nacer February 5th

    really amazing, good job


  27. Jesse March 1st

    Wow, these tuts are amazing. This is the third one I’ve done today.

    Thanks,

    J


  28. goldenone March 6th

    wow, great!


  29. Brent March 12th

    Yo, awesome site. Thanks for making a kick ass tutorial in an easy to use way!


  30. DriSs March 20th

    süpersin :D


  31. Andrew D March 25th

    Great tutorial, I really like this effect, reminds me of the Grinch!


  32. Rhia March 30th

    haha Love it =D

    Reminds me of something that would be used for ‘a bugs life’ or something! Hehe

    Keep up the amazing work+tutorials

    x x x


  33. Nysuatro April 4th

    I came with this final effect

    http://www.flickr.com/photos/25310703@N02/2385557451/


  34. frame April 7th

    thanks a lot for the tut….


  35. Ginx April 23rd

    great tutorial… i get stuck on these text tutorials when you are saying to CTRL + click on the text layer to duplicate it. I am using CS2 and this doesn’t do anything for me? I end up trying the majic wand tool and get a really choppy selection of the text layer… like this. How do i properly select the text?

    http://www.apartmentoutpost.com/bliss.jpg

    Thanks!


  36. Rybaxs April 26th

    hehehe… nice work


  37. Danny May 24th

    I’ve always wondered how the pros do this stuff =P


  38. Katsuhisa May 27th

    Although a nice tutorial, but hardly to understand for a newbie like me. From step 7 on, I can’t follow your instructions because of the limited information detail. No matter what I do the gradient doesn’t work.


  39. SOIREE SUAREZ May 27th

    it’s very awsome!

    thx!!

    SOIREE


  40. Like.no.others August 8th

    I need the font used in this tuts but I cannt find it anywhere, if u have, please help me!!! send me through likenoothers@ymail.com. THANK YOU VERY MUCH!


  41. lollipop September 21st

    aawww so cute! thanks a lot!!!! ^ ^


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