Ancient Golden Text Effect In Photoshop

Posted on December 28th, 2008 under Text Effects, it has 51 Comments and 40,194 Views so far.

In this tutorial, I will demonstrate the steps I took to make this golden ancient text effect in Photoshop. I always love ancient history and have an interest in reading all sorts of history books.

Along the way, we will be looking into techniques such as layer blending effects, loading and expanding selection and image adjustments.

Below is a preview of the final result:

Ok let’s get started!

Step 1

Create a new document sized 1000 x 400 pixel, fill the background layer with Black colour and type some texts onto it. You may use any font you like, I chose this beautiful font from dafont.com.

Position the text as shown below: (You may hit Ctrl + t to bring up the free transformation tool to resize the text a bit)

Step 2

On the text layer, apply the following layer blending options:

Inner Shadow

Outer Glow

Bevel and Emboss

Color Overlay

The effect so far will look like this:

Step 3

Now we’re going to make a selection of the text, which we can use later in the tutorial.

Move your mouse over the text layer, hold down the Ctrl key and left-click on the layer (See below image for the position where you do the left-click):

You will also notice the cursor will change into a hand with a rectangular marquee.

This will load the selection of the text (as shown below): If you are having trouble with this, there is an article on the web you might find useful.

Then go to Select > Modify > Expand (Path shown below)

Apply the following setting:

And the selection of the text should now look a bit wider than before:

Step 4

Now we’re going to add some texture to create some ancient feeling for the text.

Download a copy of this image and load it into photoshop. Go back to our own document and press the “M” key to select the Rectangular Marquee Tool, then move your mouse over the text until the cursor turns into a rectangular marquee shape: (see image below)

Then hold down your left mouse button and drag the entire selection over to the newly loaded texture:

Copy and Paste selected area over to our document – This action will automatically create a new layer, name it as “texture”.

Set the blending mode of this layer to “Overlay” and you should have the following effect so far:

Step 5

Duplicate the “texture” layer three times. Apply changes to layer blending as following:

Change the layer blending mode for “texture copy” layer to “Color Dodge”, with an opacity of 40%

Keey the layer blending mode for “texture copy 2″ layer as “Overlay”, with an opacity of 100%

Change the layer blending mode for “texture copy 3″ layer to “Soft Light”, with an opacity of 90%.

And you should now have the following effect:

Step 6

This is an optional step. I feel like adding some depth into the text, so I duplicate the “texture copy 3″ layer once, then hit Ctrl + Alt + Shift + B to bring up the Black and White adjustment tool and apply the following settings on the duplicted layer:

The effect will now look like this:

OK that’s it for this tutorial! The rest is left upon your own creativity, you can add some more texture, adjust colour balance, etc. Totally up to you :)

Below is my final result for this tutorial: (I added a background texture and further adjusted the colour balance)

PSD File for this Tutorial

Having trouble with this awesome tutorial? You can buy this PSD File for only $2.00! Click the link below and you will be taken to the Paypal checkout page, after payment you will be given a download link automatically.

That’s it for this tutorial! Hope you enjoy this tutorial and find it useful and inspirational!

As usual, if you have any question, just leave me a comment below.

Thanks very much and have a nice day!

Tutorials Room Says:
Good Tutorial! It was chosen for the home page of http://www.tutorialsroom.com

Clear and useful :)
psaddict Says:
Added to http://www.psaddict.com
Ghast Says:
THere is actually a much easier way to do this, type ur text then put the golden texture on a layer above it, select that layer and hit ctrl-alt-g and itll make a clipping mask
s.udayakumar Says:
i am photoshop faculity more than 4 years experiance in india
i like these…..
Giacomo Says:
hi! if I hit Ctrl + Alt + Shift + B to bring up the Black and White adjustment doesn’t appear anithing… help me, please… I have Photoshop CS2! How I can do the step 6? Thanks
Heather Barger Says:
Fantastic I can’t wait to try this.
Thanks for sharing
James Says:
Hi giacomo, you might be able to get around the B&W tool by desaturating the image first, then use the curve or level tool to adjust the contrast a bit.
hope this helps :)
James Says:
To Heather: No problem :)
Giacomo Says:
thanks James, but after Desaturate how can I have the image with the “preset” and the colors bars? With the level or curves tool I’m not so skilled! :( please lead me step by step :)
James Says:
Hi Giacomo,

There is no color bars in Desaturate unfortunately. What I meant was to desaturate to image first, then use the Curve Tool or Level Tool to further adjust the black and white balance.

The resulting effect won’t be exactly the same but I think it would be close.

Hope this helps!
akkrr3312 Says:
Step 3

Now we’re going to make a selection of the text, which we can use later in the tutorial.

Move your mouse over the text layer, hold down the Ctrl key and left-click on the layer – this will load the selection of the text (as shown below)

i use ps cs2 and when i ctrl + left click. it does not select text.. how to fix problem?
James Says:
Hi akkrr3312, you should be able to select the text by doing so.

There is a more detailed article about various selection techniques I found on the web: http://www.command-tab.com/2007/10/07/10-photoshop-selection-tips/

Hope this helps!
akkrr3312 Says:
Well, how did you type the text in? I just used horizontal type tool.. is that why? I still don’t know how to select the text ><
akkrr3312 Says:
How did you type your text? I use the horizontal type tool to type. Maybe is that the reason I cannot select the text by doing ctrl+ left click?
James Says:
Hi akkrr3312, I have uploaded an image showing the exact position where you perform the selection load in step 3.

Hope this helps and thank you for raising this point :)
akkrr3312 Says:
Thank you very much!
akkrr3312 Says:
Download a copy of this image and load it into photoshop

The “this image” link is broken. says forbidden. >< can you relink?
Ann Says:
Hi James. How can I find this “Desaturate” thing as an alternative for
B & W Image Adjustment Tool? Please help me on this as I am very much interested with your tutorial. Thanks a lot!
James Says:
Hi Ann, I sent your email with a screenshot of the location where you can find desaturation tool. Use it in conjunction with levels and curves tool.
Hope that will help :)
akkrr3312 Says:
Can you re-upload the.. image? still says forbidden ><
James Says:
image link updated, should be working now :)
Andrew Says:
ok im at step 4 and for some reason this is totally not working, can u please give me some details on how to do this step?
James Says:
@andrew, ok after you expand the selection, press M key to select the rectangular marquee tool, then simply move the mouse over your selection and left-click and hold to drag the selection over to the texture.

Hope this helps :)
Ron Says:
Dear James,

What a great technique, and very useful. I was blown away by the end result. The marquee tool trick was very new to me. I learned PS very quickly and use it so quickly, things such as the marquee symbol popping up when hovering over text have been missed. I have limited space on my screen and enjoy a tidy layer palette. This technique will save me space I am sure. I will see how much time I save, though just by reading this, I am sure it will be noticeable.
Thank you very much for this tutorial and making these things known to me.

Ron
shoe carnival Says:
Great post!!
admin Says:
No problem Ron! thank you for leaving such nice comment!
Kency Says:
Thanks your tutorial, I am a new member , i haven’t known about photo shop before, this is my first practice i really love it . ^^

A member from Viet Nam :)
Flaidey Says:
Hello mate, could you help me making something like that awesome background of yours?:D
corona Says:
Same question as Flaidey! Please give us a guideline or two on how to get that wicked bg!! :D
Business Card Printing Says:
I love all these types of ancient effects, call me old fashioned haha :) They’re very elegant, dramatic, and mysterious in a way. This one’s really great! Thanks for sharing this tutorial!
Elizabeth Says:
Hi, I’m not sure whether or not you’ll get this message because I realize that this tutorial was posted awhile ago, but I did have a question!

I can get the tutorial to work up until the part on step 4 where I’m asked to set the blending mode of the layer named “texture” to “Overlay”.

I’m using Photoshop 7.0 on Windows, so I’m not sure how much of a difference that may make, but there’s no option specifically named “Overlay.” I have a color overlay, a gradient overlay, and a pattern overlay. I tried all three and none of them make the cool effect you have a picture of on the tutorial!

I followed the tutorial step by step up until this point and I’m just wondering… what am I doing wrong at this point? I’m really not sure.

Any help you could give me I would really appreciate, you’ve created such an awesome effect that I would love to be able to learn!

If you get this, thank you so much for your time, I greatly appreciate it!
Muthamizhan Says:
Great post! Thank U
huwaw69 Says:
ermmmm its a bit unreadable text, but great effect though.
Jim Says:
this is a great text effect, inspired me to experiment with other textures, works great!
Kura Says:
Its great easy to do I have a question is there any way to kind of flatten it out so you would be able to add a glow effect to the text.
Attn.
Kura
Sevada Says:
How can you achieve the same results but with a different background?
Pascal Says:
Hello,

Could you re-upload the image texture?
The link is not working.
Pascal Says:
Could someone reupload the image texture, I think the tutorial is really great but I can not move on with the tutorial.

Thanks in advance
Pascal Says:
Could someone be so kind to reupload the link? I’d love to finnish this tutorial.

thanks
Pascal Says:
Hello,

I would really appreciate it if someone would re-upload the texture that was used in the tutorial in step 4.

thanks in advance.
James Says:
@Pascal: I’m really sorry but I lost track of the original texture image, I have uploaded a png version of the texture which has been extracted from the original texture. Please click the link in Step 4 to download it.

Hope this helps
Pascal Says:
Thank you very much! I got this great idea with some other tutorials I found on the internet.
If I combine them all together then it will look like an old book that has that acient text on it and at the bottom a page that will turn a bit, and some sketch of a rose on it.
I saved the picture on my pc now so I can start from step 4 again. This really helped alot.
nipa Says:
thank you//