The Look of Glass                        Copyright 2003 - JMA - All Rights Reserved

I had several requests for this tutorial, but never really found the time to do it. I'll have to be honest. I really never saw a need for it, until I finished it. Then I realized that maybe it has some uses after all. Creating the illusion of glass on a two dimensional screen is more difficult than creating the look of metal, such as Chrome, Gold, etc...,  primarily because glass is a translucent surface that allows you to see through it. With objects, such as jars or bottles, the task of creating the illusion of GLASS is easier, though laborious. With text, the problem is a little more difficult because we really don't want to spend a lot of time coloring and fine tuning every letter to make the glass more realistic. We simply want to apply the effect and be done with it. After a couple of hours of trying to find the best approach, I came up with the solution below. I am not sure whether it will wok well with all text fonts, but it should.

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Create a New Image file The first thing we want to do is to create a new image file. You will have to decide on how big it should be depending on the size and length of the text string. For this tutorial, I used 400 x 200 pixels with a transparent background. The font used was Arial Black with a size of 72 and the "Create As" was set to Floating.

Choosing a Text Color The text color that you use should be realtively close to the background color on where the text will be placed. This is because some of the residual color will remain with the effect and will provide the illusion of translucence. Type and center the text in the image window. Use the Move tool to position it in place.

Applying the first Effect - Inner Bevel On the Main Menu bar select Effects > 3D Effect > Inner bevel. When the Inner Bevel dialog window appears enter the values shown.

Bevel = 1 Triangle Width = 7 Smoothness = 8 Depth = 8 Ambience = -69 Shininess = 100 Angle = 84 Intensity = 36 Elevation = 59 Color -  Red = 171, Blue = 188, Green = 140

Applying the second Effect - Chrome Next, go to the Main Menu and select Effects > Artistic Effects > Chrome. Pay close attention to how the Chrome filter changes the text if you want to experiment with other 3D effects. In the Chrome dialog window, set the Flaws to 2 and the Brightness to 50.

At this point, we are almost done. The glass look is starting to appear, but it is still too dark for glass.

Brightening the Text Let's brighten the text a little using the Brightness and Contrast command. On the Main Menu select Adjust > Brightness/Contrast and when the dialog window opens set bothe values to 30. You can try different setting here, depending on your preference.

If you want to brighten the text more, use the Levels command and move the Center diamond slider to the LEFT until it read 1.4 or so.

Sharpen the Text Apply a small amount of sharpening using the Adjust > SHarpen > Sharpen filter.

Final Touches As a final touch, add glitter or even a drop shadow.

Well that's it. Cut and paste the text on your background and you're done. I hope that was worth the wait.