Metal Surface with Casted Texts and Patterns

Today I am going to introduce a method which useful to make textures of metal surfaces with casted texts and patterns. Since the pattern you want on the metal surface depends on the model, it will not be easy to find a suitable map for your requirement. By using this method you will be able to easily convert your plain metal texture into a textured map. At the same time you will get the chance make the exact texture you need, without changing your requirement according to what is available.
For this tutorial I am going to use a photograph of real metal surface as my base since it can be easily found. However, if you are talent enough you will be able to make your own texture too. Decide the size of the texture you need, and open new file with decided dimensions. Here I am going to use a 1024 X 1024 file. Find a map/picture suitable for your texture map, copy and paste in your new file. Scale down the map and find a suitable place from the map which can be used as “base”. Name the layer as base.

Hide the base layer. Add a new layer on top of the base layer. Mark the pattern you want using pure black colour. Add text layers, if you need any text parts. No matter how much layers you are going to use, use only black colour in transparent layers. After completing all, select all the pattern layers and merge them to one layer. Rename merged layer as “mask”. Now you are having only two layers; the base layer (we hided it) and the mask layer.

Turn on “base” layer, right click on that and select Duplicate Layer. Name the new layer a pattern_top. Drag the mask layer and place in between base layer and pattern_top layer.

Select the pattern_top layer, go to Layer menu and select Create Chipping Mask (shortcut Alt + Ctrl +G). Don’t worry you won’t see any difference. If you really need, turn off base layer and see. (make sure to turn on base layer again)
Right click on the mask layer and go to Blending Options. Set following settings as blending options (let not specified settings to be remain as they were).

Turn on Drop Shadow and do following settings,

• Blend Mode – Multiply, colour – black, Opacity – 75%
• Distance – 0 px, Spread – 16%, Size – 29 px
• Noise – 0%

Turn on Inner Shadow and do following settings,

• Blend Mode – Lighten, colour – white, Opacity – 11%
• Distance – 5 px, Choke – 20%, Size – 4 px
• Noise – 0%

Turn on Outer Glow with following settings,

• Blend Mode – Darken, Opacity – 25%, Noise – 0%, colour – black
• Technique – Softer, Spread – 0%, Size – 16 px
• Range – 38%, Jitter – 0%

Turn on Inner Glow with following settings,

• Blend Mode – Lighten, Opacity – 29%, Noise – 0%, colour – white
• Technique – Softer, Source – Edge, Choke – 0%, Size – 8 px
• Range – 52%, Jitter – 0%

Turn on Bevel and Emboss with following settings,

• Style – Emboss, Technique – Smooth, Depth – 91%, Direction – Up, Size – 5 px, Soften – 0 px

Under Shading,

• Highlight Mode – Vivid Light, Colour – white, Opacity – 50%
• Shadow Mode – Overlay, Colour – black, Opacity – 75%

Finally, turn on Stain with following settings,

• Blend Mode – Multiply, Colour – black, Opacity – 16%
• Distance – 11 px, Size – 14 px

Now you should receive a nice patterned texture. However you may change the blending option settings if you want. This is what I got using above settings.

If you want to further improve your texture map, you can be with me.

Even though, we have used an old metal map as our base material to give an older look, our prepared pattern on that is too sharp like a new one. So now I am going to make our embossed pattern older by adding a wear away look to that.
Turn off pattern_top layer, and effects of the mask layer. Now we can see our embossed pattern on the base map clearly in black colour.

Select the mask layer, ad apply Spatter filter (Filter menu > Brush Strokes > Spatter) with Spray Radius – 20 and Smoothness – 15. Now you will see some white patched appear on edges. Select them and delete them using Magic Wand Tool (Set Tolerance – 1 and Turnoff Continuous). Apply Spatter filter with the same parameters and delete white spots again. Now, you may done enough damages to the edges to make it older. Turn on Pattern_top layer and Effects of the mask layer.

Now is having to sharp broken edges, to avoid that apply Gaussian Blur filter with 0.5 pixel radius.

Now it’s looking good. If your model is in outside under sun and rain, it will be covered by moss. Let’s add some to our texture. Add new layer on top of all, set Foreground and Background colours to white and dark green and apply Clouds Filter. Again add Water Colour filter by keeping Brush Detail at 9, Shadow Intensity at 1 and Texture at 1. Change the Blending Mode of the layer into Multiply. Change the fill if it is too dark.

Create another layer, copy what you got in the mask layer, and paste on the new layer. By keeping your new layer selected, go to Selective Colour (image > Adjustments > Selective Colour). Select Blacks as Colour, set Magenta to -50 and Blacks to +50. Not the layer should be in dark green colour. Add Motion Blur filter by keeping Angle at 90 and Distance at 50. Change the Blending Mode of the layer to Multiply. Place this layer (order of the layer) just above the Base layer. Move the whale layer slightly downwards until you got something like this.

Now the job is complete. This is my final product.

Hope you have enjoyed this tutorial. I would like to receive your feedback.