Wednesday, July 8, 2009

Simple Web 2.0 Button

Step 1: Create a new 800x800 pixels document (in fact, size is not a matter)

Simple Attractive Button 1

Step 2: Right click on your shape tool and choose Rounded Rectangle Tool

Simple Attractive Button 2

set the radius (on the top toolbar) about 5 pixels Simple Attractive Button 2b

Step 3: Change your foreground and background to light green and dark green with these values

Simple Attractive Button 3

Step 4: Now draw a small rectangle on your document. On the Layers tab, double click on your new created layer to open the Layer Style dialog box. Use these effects:

+ Drop shadow:

Simple Attractive Button 4

+ Gradient Overlay:

Simple Attractive Button 5

(choose Foreground to Background option)

+ Stroke:

Simple Attractive Button 6

After using these effects, our rectangle will look like this:

Simple Attractive Button 6b

We will draw something on our rectangle.

Step 5: Right click on the shape tool again, but this time we choose Custom Shape Tool

Simple Attractive Button 7

Step 6: On the top toolbar, you will see a small arrow on the right side of the "Shape" word, click on it. If you just see a few shapes then click on the small arrow on the top right of the box, choose All to load all shapes

Simple Attractive Button 8

Select a shape you like and draw it on your rectangle

Simple Attractive Button 9

My note is pink just because it is the selected layer. In fact, your shape will be green because it uses your foreground color by default.

Step 7: To change your shape's color, double click on its layer to open the Layer Style dialog box, use Stroke effect with yellow like this:

Simple Attractive Button 10

Use the Horizontal Type Tool(T) to write something you want. Here is the result:

Simple Attractive Button 11

You can stop here! But if you want to make your button more attractive, I will show you an interesting technique.

Step 8: In the Layers tab, choose the top layer (by default, maybe it is Shape 2 layer or your text layer, if you used one) and click on "Create a new layer" icon

Simple Attractive Button 12

Step 9: Right click on the Marquee Tool(M) and choose Elliptical Marquee Tool

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draw a small ellipse on the top of your rectangle

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Step 10: Press Shift-F5 to open the Fill dialog box, select White in the drop-down list. Click OK

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Step 11: Double click on your current layer. In the General Blending, reduce Opacity to 25. Deselect all other effects if they are in use.

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Now press Ctrl-D to deselect the ellipse, here is the final result

Simple Attractive Button 17

Note: if you don't use a white background, you will see an unwanted white area outside your rectangle. To fix this problem, you have to make a precise selection (which is intersected by your rectangular selection and your elliptical selection).

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