Print Design: Creating buttons in Photoshop

by Joey at 1:07 am

This might not be what you think. We’re creating Photoshop buttons, like the ones you would pin on your shirt or create for a political campaign. In this tutorial, we will create a basic button using different layers and some different effects.
PSDtuts.com has this tutorial on their site, however, they don’t give out specifics on the effects and how to make it work. So I figured I would expand and give you some actual values to use.
First, create a new document. Now using the gradient tool, we have selected to create a radial gradient that goes from dark gray to black. This gives a nice lighting effect to the background of the file.
Using the shape tool, draw a circle. The easiest way to get a perfect circle is to hold shift while you click and drag the shape on the page. The color of this doesn’t matter for the tutorial. In this case, we have selected red. In the layers palette, change the fill to 0%. Leave the opacity at 100%. The fill will take out the color the circle. But it will leave the effects we will be doing to the circle.
By double-clicking on the layer in the layers palette, we bring up the layer styles. We will be using drop shadow, inner shadow, inner glow, satin and gradient overlay.
Starting with drop shadow, make sure it’s set at multiply for the blend mode. Change the opacity to 45%. Keep the rest of the values at their default.
For the inner shadow, make it set to overlay. Keep the values at the same.
The inner glow is very important. Change the blend mode to screen, and the color of the glow to white. Make sure the opacity is 25%. With the layer style window still open, use the cursor tool to move the inner glow to the upper right corner of circle.
Keep the satin blending mode to the default values. The gradient overlay is very important. Change the blend mode to soft light. Make the opacity set to 75%. Make it a radial gradient, and again, using the cursor, shift the gradient to the upper right corner of the circle.
Now, we will create white glows on the upper right and bottom left corners. Using the elliptical marquee selection tool, make a oval at the top of the circle. Now create a white to transparent gradient that will fill the inside of the selection. Change the blending mode in the layers palette on this particular object to overlay, and change the opacity to 55%. Now make a copy of it and place it at the bottom left corner. Change the blending mode to lighten, and set the opacity to 35%.
Now we are ready to add our photo to the button.
Select an image to use. Be sure to place it above the background layer, but underneath the button layers. Be sure to merge the layers for the button layers. Right click of the button layer, and select pixels. Now go to select -> inverse. Click back on the photo layer, and delete the outside edges of the button.
And the end result is a nicely done button. Thanks to PSDtuts for giving the foundation for this tutorial.