Shading a Dark Metal Bar

In this tutorial, we will learn how to shade a realistic metal bar. It can be used on templates, interfaces, signatures, you name it.

Step 1.
Open a new document. For this tutorial, I am just going to use a 500,300 (Width, Height) document. Fill the background with #252525

Make a new selection with the Rectangular Marquee Tool and make it however big you want your bar to be. Make a new layer called Main and fill it with #404040.

Step 3.
With the Burn Tool, set to the following:

• Diameter - 45
• Range - Highlights
• Exposure - 22%

Shade the top and bottom of your bar. Hold the Shift key while doing this to keep your lines straight. You will need to go over the bar a couple times to give it the desired effect. I am making it just a little darker than my background color. You might have to go up a little more than the size of your brush, depending on the size of your shape. In this case, just move your cursor up, or make your brush larger.

Step 4.
With the Dodge Tool, set to the following:

• Diameter - 39
• Range - Highlights
• Exposure - 18%

Shade the middle part of your bar. Just do this part lightly to get the base shading. You will see why in a minute.

Repeat this again making the Diameter smaller each time. Go down about 10 pixels each time. Do this about 2 more times.

For the last one, go down to 1 pixel and make that last line. It might not show, just depends how you shaded.

You can do some touch up work now with the dodge and burn. I am going to burn mine a little more to get a smaller not as blurry high light.

Please proceed to the next page.