Am making a chrome letter text tutorial per request. This'll be my first. I discovered some new techniques by trial and error the other night. Have been making chrome text for a few years now, but this technique gives more of a reflected look.
Let's get started.
Create a new image, 800x200:
![Image](http://www.gimpchat.com/files/2834_sshot-1.png)
Use the bucket tool, and fill the layer with black:
![Image](http://www.gimpchat.com/files/2834_sshot-2.png)
Use the text tool, and in this case, type in "GIMP", with white letters, 911 Porscha font, size 175:
http://www.dafont.com/911porscha.font![Image](http://www.gimpchat.com/files/2834_sshot-3.png)
Merge the GIMP layer into the background layer, and give it a Gaussian blur of 5:
![Image](http://www.gimpchat.com/files/2834_sshot-4.png)
Go to Select>By Color, and click anywhere on the black. Select>Invert the selection, and add a new layer called " Chrome". Click on the eye on the background layer to hide it. Should now look like this:
![Image](http://www.gimpchat.com/files/2834_sshot-6.png)
Choose the custom CHROME gradient, that I'll put here for download. I made this gradient, but feel I made the darker section of the gradient a bit dark. Therefore, stroke the gradient from bottom to top, and start a bit below the selection, like so:
![Image](http://www.gimpchat.com/files/2834_sshot-7.png)
Should now look like this:
![Image](http://www.gimpchat.com/files/2834_sshot-8.png)
Hit Select>None. Go to Filters>Map>Bump Map. Select the background layer, and hit OK:
![Image](http://www.gimpchat.com/files/2834_sshot-9.png)
Should look like this:
![Image](http://www.gimpchat.com/files/2834_sshot-10.png)
Go to Color>Curves, and adjust it to something like this, then hit OK. As you can see, the letters turn into chrome:
![Image](http://www.gimpchat.com/files/2834_sshot-11.png)
This is where the real "magic" begins. Go to Colors>Map>Alien Map, with stock settings, hit OK. The chrome will really shine up:
![Image](http://www.gimpchat.com/files/2834_sshot-12.png)
Duplicate the Chrome layer, and go to the blend tool, and select the gradient called, "Sunrise":
![Image](http://www.gimpchat.com/files/2834_sshot-13.png)
With the Chrome copy selected, go to Colors>Map>Gradient Map, and select it. Should look like this:
![Image](http://www.gimpchat.com/files/2834_sshot-14.png)
Set the mode on the layers dialog to "burn", and merge the 2 chrome layers. Looks like this:
![Image](http://www.gimpchat.com/files/2834_sshot-15.png)
Finally, alpha to selection the chrome layer, and add a drop shadow. In this case, I set the offsets to 3, and the blur radius to 10. Here's the final result! Thanks for looking.
![Image](http://www.gimpchat.com/files/2834_GIMPChrome.png)