Create A Fun, Easy Gel Text Effect With Layer Styles

Step 13: Changing The Color Of The Gel Text Effect

We're done creating the "gel" effect using layer styles, we've saved it as a new style named "Gel effect", and we've instantly applied it to the word "shop". But what if I want the word "shop" to be a different color? You're probably thinking "Easy, just use a Hue/Saturation adjustment layer". So let's try that and see if it works.

I'll use Hue/Saturation to change the color of the word "shop" from blue to pink. Here's the result:

The word itself has turned pink, but do you see the problem? The layer styles are still blue. The Hue/Saturation adjustment had no effect on them. If we want to change both the text color and the layer styles color, we need to use a bit of a trick.

With the "shop" layer still selected in the Layers palette, use the keyboard shortcut Ctrl+G (Win) / Command+G (Mac) to place the "shop" layer into a Layer Group, which Photoshop names "Group 1":

We can see in the Layers palette above that the "shop" layer is now inside the Layer Group. Next, we need to change the blend mode for the Layer Group from its default of "Pass Through" to Normal:

Now click on the "shop" layer to select it and then click on the New Adjustment Layer icon at the bottom of the Layers palette:

Select Hue/Saturation from the list:

When the Hue/Saturation dialog box appears, drag the Hue slider to change the color of the text:

Keep an eye on your text in the Document Window as you're dragging the slider. When you're happy with the new color, click OK to exit out of the Hue/Saturation dialog box, and this time, because the "shop" layer was placed inside a Layer Group, the layer styles are now colored along with the text itself:

And there we have it!

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