Photoshop® CS4 Bible

22.2. Bevel and Emboss

The Bevel and Emboss layer style is an incredibly versatile effect. At its most basic, you can use it to add dimension to text, making it look like the text is carved out of stone or forged from some type of metal. With a little creative manipulation of the effect's settings, you can go beyond that to create some unexpected looks, including glass or shiny plastic.

Choose LayerLayer StyleBevel and Emboss. You'll find two types of bevel and three emboss styles available under the Styles menu. Depending on the options you select in the Structure section of the Layer Style settings window, you can create the look of text that was chiseled from stone, or stamped into a sheet of metal, like a license plate.

This is all achieved by applying a shadow and highlight in various ways, which you can manipulate in the Shading section of the settings window. Figure 22.6 shows the different basic types of bevel and emboss effects that are found in the Styles menu.

Figure 22.6. The Bevel and Emboss layer style offers the five styles shown here. Note that for the Pillow Emboss and Stroke Emboss examples, the Layer Fill was set to 0, so that the background gradient shows through the type. The Stroke Emboss example requires a Stroke effect to be applied to the layer.

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