molly: thank you! i don't really think i'll be the only one to think of those crossings, though - they look worse every time i look at them. but i'll do it better next time, i have an idea how i could solve the problem.

Go for it!

You could try cloning the crossings from the edges closest to them, that will probably give you a more natural flow of the chrome gradient.

ek22: good advice, and i tried it, but it was too hard to get these curved lines smooth when using the clone tool, so in the end i gave it up. would have worked well on a shape with straighter lines, though.

here's my second attempt at this. i made the knotwork heart in overlapping parts, ran the chrome filter on each of the parts and cut and pasted til i had all the crossings right. it looks a lot better, but i couldn't use rod's chrome curve on it without messing up the crossings again, so i did my own tweak there too - i embossed a copy of the heart, used a chrome curve on the embossed layer and did some stuff i don't really remember right now and got some nice looking silver out of it . the shimmering inlay is he4rty's brushed steel that i colourised.

Beautiful

molly: thanks - i wholeheartedly agree with you

AnMal your Celtic jewelry is gorgeous.

I tried my hand at making gold. Used a layer of yellow-orange and tried different layer modes. Think I used grain merge ... not for sure.

Wow O, that is so very beautiful. I just love the way it comes right out at you. Cool!

thanks for the pattern, very nice.

Nice gold likeness O.

here is exactly how i did it...
1) New document white bg.
2) Choose your type, and write your text
3) Select the text layer and right click it.Select "Layer to image size".
4) Right click the text layer and select "Alpha to selection".
5) Go to Select>To Channel.
6) Go to Select>None. - Go back to the layers pallet.Select the text layer.
7) Go to Filters>Alpha to logo>Chrome.-- Default background color and 20 for offset.Now you need to make the bg invisible and do a new from visible.Select the new visible layer and make the bg visible again.
Go to Colors>Curves and make the line horizontal and bring the center point up so you have something of a cone.Try to make it how i showed in the previous post.Adjust curves to your liking.
8) Now go to your "Channels" pallet and select the channel you created from your text layer.Now click the red square at the bottom of the channels pallet and this loads the selection.
9) Now you need to go back to the layers pallet and create a new layer.Fill with black.
10) Go to Select>Shrink shrink by 4 (new layer), and fill with your pattern.
11) Go to Select>Shrink, and shrink by 3 - (make a new layer), fill with black
12) Move this last new black filled layer to the right or left (your choice) set the opacity real low.
13) Select the pattern layer, and Go to Colors>Hue and Saturation - play with these settings to your likings.
14) Go to Colors>Brightness and Contrast - set the contrast to your liking.
That's pretty much it.

O: so beautiful with the green and gold, looks lovely against the pink background! what did you use for the inlay? oh, and thank you .

I did a Bing search for polished stone and although this is not the one I used (didn't keep it and can't find it), it's similar to it. I colorized it to make it the color I wanted. http://www.galleriaofstone.net/assets/u ... 10x673.jpg

Thanks for the nice pattern.

I also grabbed your onyx pattern O.Great texture for jewelry making.
When i was creating mine i put in my own little things also (i do that a lot with tutorials)
Like i would select the pattern (alpha to selection), and shrink it a wee bit then select inverse, and delete to fit better and show the silver edges more.Remember this entire tutorial and it's settings are going to depend on your text size.

O: thanks for the texture! the irregularities of the stone makes great inlay patterns.

I played around some with this. Didn't use the chrome script though, I decided on making the metal parts with layer fx bevel and emboss instead.

ek22: looks like fancy emboss work on paper.

That would make a cool looking necklace for someone into card playing.

Beautiful!