Aqua smooth blue text

Ok, now I have made a few blue looking plastic text effects in the past but this one is different, I promise hehe. I made an action for this effect and it received about 1,000 downloads in 2 days so here is the tutorial.

First up, start with a new image, depending on what your going to write, make it about 800x800px with a white background. Now select the Type tool.

Now type your text at size 450pts no other size.

Make sure your text is the right shade of blue #9FB8C1.

Once done, click the tick to commit your text.

What's great about this effect is its mostly done using Layer styles. That means its very easy to re-apply once you have done it once since you can save your Layer style settings.
So now go to Layer>Layer style>Inner Shadow
We are going to use the Inner shadow to give us a faint gloss, it wont show up much now but it will later.
Match these settings: Blend mode normal, colour white, opacity 21, angle -90, distance 10, choke 70, size 5.

Next up we are going to add a slight bevel to our text using the Inner glow so add an Inner glow style to your text and match these settings: colour: 0069B0, opacity: 21%, distance: 10, choke: 70, size: 5.

Now we add a Bevel and Emboss Layer style to give the text the colour dodge effect at the bottom. Match these settings: Style inner bevel, technique smooth, depth 71, direction up, size 40, soften 5, angle 120, altitude 30, highlight mode screen, opacity 0, shadow mode colour dodge, opacity 42.

We are not done with layer styles just yet so DO NOT click ok. Just check, at the moment your text should look something like mine opposite.

Next up with the Layer styles is Gradient Overlay
Add a gradient overlay and match these settings: Blend mode normal, opacity 67, colour- gradient (white 0% opacity -> white 100% opacity), angle 90, style linear, scale 135.
This instantly makes some parts of the text a lot brighter.
Now our edges are a little weird so last but not least. Add a Stroke layer style.
Match your stroke settings to these settings: Size 1, position inside, blend mode normal, opacity 53, colour 00556B.


Optional:
It is a good idea to now save your style, so that next time you don't have to enter all those settings in again.
Click at the top of the styles palette where it says "styles".
Now click the "new Style" button and give your style a name, Mines called AQA. You can now use this over and over. Click OK when done.

Now, we want to add another highlight. This time we will do it manually. Its fairly easy but follow carefully.
HOLD CTRL and click on your text layer in the layers palette to select it. Now create a new layer.
On your keyboard arrows, press up twice and left twice to offset the selection.
Now HOLD CTRL and ALT and click on the text layer in the layers palette again. What you should be left with is a thin selection around part of the text. Press X then D to reset your colours and then hit CTRL + Backspace to fill this selection in white. Now press CTRL + D to deselect.
Use the move tool to move the white highlight down so its just inside your text like so.
I decided to slightly blur my highlight, so go to Filter>Blur>Gaussian blur.
Use a setting of 0.4 and click ok.
It should now look like mine opposite.

Now, to keep these layers in place I locked them together, to do this click in the square next to the layer until the lock icon appears.

Now if you move any of the 2 layers, they will move together.

You are now pretty much complete, but if you want to learn how to give it a nice transparent shadow, see the next step.

Hold CTRL and click on your text layer in the layers palette to select it. now go to Edit>Copy Merged.
Now create a new layer UNDERNEATH both your other 2 layers but ABOVE your background layer. Now go to Edit>Paste.
Now HOLD CTRL and SHIFT and press down once on your keyboard to move the text down 10 pixels.
Now go to Filter>Blur>Gaussian Blur and choose a setting of 4.7. Click ok.
Again lock this layer with your other too so they all move together.
You are now done, and you text should look like mine opposite.
Hope you enjoyed the tutorial and be sure to post any interesting creations in the Forum. Thanks.