Create A Fun, Easy Gel Text Effect With Layer Styles

Step 12: Save The Layer Style

We're done adding layer styles at this point, but before you close out of the Layer Style dialog box, click the New Style button on the right:

We're going to save this gel effect style so that we can re-use it whenever we want. When you click the button, Photoshop pops up the New Style dialog box. I'm going to name my new style "Gel effect":

Then I'll click OK and I now have my style saved in Photoshop. Let's see how we can instantly apply it to something else.

Since I already have the word "photo" entered into my document window, I'm going to grab my Type tool once again from the Tools palette and this time, I'll enter the word "shop" below it. I'm also going to use the Free Transform command to resize it so it's the same size as the word "photo", and I'm going to rotate it as well. Here's what it looks like at the moment:

Right now, the word "shop" is using nothing more than the original text color, but I want it to have the same "gel effect" I created with the word "photo". I could go through all the steps again and re-create the layer style, but thankfully, I don't have to because I was smart enough to save the effect as a new style. Where can I find the style? It's in Photoshop's Styles palette, located at the very bottom:

To apply it to my text, all I have to do is make sure I have the "shop" text layer selected in the Layers palette, and then click on the "Gel effect" style in the Styles palette. The effect is instantly added to the text:

What if I wanted the word "shop" to be a different color though? It's easy to change the color, but there's a bit of a trick to it, as we'll see next.