In this tutorial we'll see how to create a glossy gel text.

This is the simplest way that I know.

Open a new document, I choosed 600 x 250 px.

Select the Text Tool and choose a "fat" font: here I used Arial Rounded Mt Bold and type your text. I made it 85px.



Now create a new layer and click on it in the layers palette.

Now hold CTRL pressed and click on the text layer. Your text whould be selected.

Now be sure to be on the new layer (if not click on it in the layers palette) and hit Select > Modify > Contract and coose a value by which your selection have to be contracted. I used 4 px and this is what I have now.



Now select the Paint Bucket Tool and choose white as foreground color and fill the selection:



Now hit CTLD+D or go to Select > Deselect to discard the selection.

Now go to Filter > Blur > Gaussian Blur and choose 2,0 as radius.

This is my final result.



If you want you can play a bit with the blending modes of this layer; these are some examples:

Overlay



Soft Light