This effect lends a definite tone of aristocracy. Though I would not term this a "beginner tutorial," if you like the look, go for it! There are several steps, but I wrote this with you in mind, so you can do it. You will just have to be patient with yourself and go slowly. Glance through the whole tutorial before you begin, so you can get an idea where this is going. This will help it to make sense.

As you work through this project, you will learn/practice these techniques:

• Use several different filters to make a texture. 
• Use alpha channels and lighting effects to create a 3-D look. 
• Use layer effects.

1. First, we will make the antique gold texture layer.

a.  File -> New.  Make it in RGB Mode.

Click the new layer icon in the layers palette to make a new layer.

Click on the foreground color swatch in the toolbar and choose a medium tan color. I like BEAD90 for this. Type this in under # in your Color Picker dialog box. 

Then make black your background color.

Alt-backspace to fill your new layer with the tan. 

 (Note: For a plain shiny gold letter, without the antiquing, go straight to step 2 from here.)

b. Click Filter -> noise and choose about 100, monochromatic. 

c.  With Use Filter -> Sketch -> Reticulation (I used 0, 50, 0 for my settings.). 

(At this point, adding in Filter -> Artistic -> Poster Edges creates a neat effect too!)

d. Filter -> Distort -> Glass (I used 18 and 11, frosted.). Your result should be something like mine at the right. 

I like the effect where there are some areas that are just tan, and some little steaks of the dark brown running through it. A more even texture is ok too, but will lead to a bit different result, like this example

The JJ here gives a comparison of the result of using a varied texture and the more even one.

 File -> Save As  and pick a name. Leave your file in PSD format.

a. In the toolbox, choose the Type tool. When you click it on the canvas, it will make a new layer. Color doesn't matter and don't worry about font and size and stuff just yet.

• Type your text.
• Click the Type layer in the Layers palette to commit the text.
• Now you can fiddle with the options.
  • Click the NAME of the font in the Options bar at the top.
  • Now use the up and down arrows on your keyboard to preview your text in your fonts. The best fonts for this effect do not have very thin lines, as these will not show.
  • You can adjust the size in the same way. If you want a size that isn't in the dropdown, you can type in the number in the blank.
  • Move your text to where you think you will want it, in relation to your background, if this is a factor.
  • Then click the visibility eye for that type layer to make it invisible!

a. Click the Channels tab and then click the Create a New Channel icon at the bottom. This creates a new Alpha channel. You will now see your selection against a background of pure black.

Type D to make sure that your colors are the default white on black. Then Alt-backspace to fill the selection with white.

(What does Ctrl-backspace do?) (What's another way to fill this selection?) (Do you care? If you do, you can hit F1 in Photoshop to bring up the Help. Then click Index > F > Fill. Ok, so the help is somewhat lame, but it is good to know how to use it.)

Ctrl-D to deselect.

Double-click the new Alpha channel and name it "Original."

b. Drag that channel label down to the new layer icon, creating a copy of it.

This clears away the excess fuzz around the outside of your blurred letter, leaving only a letter that looks rather like a fluorescent lightbulb.

Ctrl-D to deselect. 

Ctrl-S to Save.

[Note: Strictly speaking, you don't NEED the Original Alpha channel for this, but you can reload the selection from the menu (Select > Reselect) or from the Layers palette again. However, I wanted to show you here that you can have and use more than one Alpha channel. The Original can also be used later, if you need that same selection again and have deleted the original type layer.]

a.   Now for the really cool part. Click the Layers tab and then select the layer with your gold that you made. This should be on a new layer, not the background. 

(Note: If you mistakenly put the gold on the background layer, double-click it in the palette and that will make it into a regular layer so that you can do this next part.)

b. Click Filter > Render > Lighting Effects. In that dialog box, choose your Texture channel in the dropdown box toward the bottom where it says Texture channel.

Your letter is still on just a WHITE background at this point. To get this golden wheat thatch paper i've used, keep going! :)

c. Do a gradient background if you like.  For my W example, I did a gradient of BEAD90 gold -> brown. Then i added a medium amount of noise and then did Filter > Brushstrokes > Crosshatch.