Step 1
Firstly, create a new document 500 by 200 pixels. Select the gradient tool and set your foreground colour to #363636 and your background colour to #252525. Appy a radial gradient by left clicking in the top left quarter and dragging to the lower right corner.
Step 2
Secondly, we’ll be starting with the base of one of the buttons for the navigation. Create a new layer (Layer > New > Layer). Select the rectangular marquee tool and make a fixed size selection of 100 by 40 pixels.
Step 3
Now fill the selection with a linear gradient (using the gradient tool) using the colours #68ad40 and #4c8c2c.
Step 4
We’re now going to be adding a couple of effects to the button using layer styles.
Layer > Layer Styles > Inner Glow.
Layer > Layer Styles > Gradient Overlay.
Layer > Layer Styles > Stroke. The colour I’ve used here is #427a25.
Your button should now be looking something like this. Nice and shiny :-)
Step 5
Next up, we’ll be adding some lighter and darker areas on the button to give it some texture. Select the burn tool and I’ve used a soft 45 pixel brush, Highlights range and a 30% exposure. Click around the sides of the button so you get something like this.
Step 6
Now select the dodge tool and here I’ve used a 14 pixel soft brush, Highlights range again and an exposure of 10%. Click around the bottom this time.
Step 7
Move the button to the left of the canvas then duplicate the layer three times and line them up like so.
Step 8
Create a new layer and make a selection below the navigation about 40 pixels high and fill with a linear gradient from #cacaca to transparent using the gradient tool.
Step 9
Go Edit > Transform > Perspective and drag one of the bottom corners outwards while holding down the ctrl key. Hit enter to set the transformation.
Step 10
Lower the opacity of the shadow layer to 10%.
Step 11
Lastly, add in some text links using the text tool. The font I’ve chosen for this is Tahoma, Regular, 15pt, Smooth, #ffffff.
And you’re finished.
sam
August 20th, 2008 at 4:02 pm
nice tut, explained thoroughly, thx for the post
Craig Snedeker
October 9th, 2008 at 4:51 am
Really nice!
Jelani
October 10th, 2008 at 8:31 am
hey i think there are some steps missing in this tutorial my button doesn’t look… somewhere in Step 4…
admin
October 10th, 2008 at 5:22 pm
Hey Jelani,
This site is under new ownership now, so I didn’t actually make this tutorial. I’ll take a deeper look and see if I can help you out. I’ll post my findings here. As with anything, one good thing to always remember: Practice makes perfect.
Thanks for browsing the site!
Jelani
October 11th, 2008 at 7:58 am
ok
Dudewtf
November 1st, 2008 at 4:30 pm
Works fine for me, i think Jelani forgot to create a new layer
Pbom
November 29th, 2008 at 1:26 am
It doesn’t work for me either and I certainly didn’t forget to create a new layer. Step 4 simply doesn’t yield that result; it’s similar, but not the same
Maxi
January 11th, 2009 at 10:25 pm
Good job man very nice tut .
Meocross
February 18th, 2009 at 8:09 am
BEST. TUTORIAL. EVER.
Why? because it tells you where the heck the effects are, seriously the “Layer > Layer Styles > Stroke” directions save me a shitload of time finding them.
Chetmun
February 19th, 2009 at 9:19 am
I think the problem with Step 4 is the Gradient Overlay style. It’s not clear what the details are for the gradient. I played around with it but couldn’t recreate the “nice and shiny” look. Other than that, it looks great. There may be some assumed knowledge here that I don’t have. Aside from that, great tutorial. Thanks!
Mansoor
March 25th, 2009 at 8:34 pm
I’m assuming if you pull down the ‘Scale’ value to 10% it kinda comes to how it looks in step 4.
Hope this helps