Glossy Button

Tutorial

Click on thumbnailed images to enlarge

1. Start by making a new document, go to File → New or press Ctrl + N and make it 85px X 85px with a white background

2. Press the letter D to make your foreground and background colors default(black and white) and then press the letter X to switch the foreground and background colors

3. Go to the toolbar and select the Elliptical tool

press and hold Shift to make a perfect circle of 70px X 70px, remember here using your Info palette for reference, if you don't see your Info palette go to Windows → Info or press F8. After finishing doing your circle you'll notice that in your layers palette you'll have a new layer containing your shape called Shape 1, double click the name Shape 1 and change it to button and position the circle in the center of your document

4. Double click to the right of the name button or go to the Blending Options and make a gradient overlay with this settings:

5. Click anywhere in the gradient to got to the Gradient Editor dialog box and change the color stops like in the image below

6. After changing those color stops click Ok in the Gradient Editor dialog box only. Now in your document click and drag to reposition the gradient like in the image below and click Ok in the Layers Style dialog box

7. Now we need our glossy part for our button, go to your layers palette and click the Create New Layer button

and double click the name Layer 2 and rename it gloss, now select the Elliptical Marquee tool

in the tool box, and make an elliptical of 50px X 30px anywhere in the document, now go to Select → Transform Selection and position it like in the image below

8. Now go to the toolbox and select the Gradient tool

and in the Tool Options bar click anywhere in the gradient and select the Foreground to Transparent gradient

9. If you notice in the bottom left corner of your image window, shows the actual magnification of your document, type 400 and click Enter. Now press and hold Shift to constrain your movement vertically and click and drag downwards with the Gradient tool from the topmost part of your selection to where the bottommost part of your selection ends and release your mouse button. PressCtrl + D to deselect your selection, double click the Zoom

tool in the toolbox to go back to 100% magnification(Actual Pixels View) and you should have something like this now

10. Now with your gloss layer still active drop down the opacity in your layers palette to 50% and to make that gloss a little more realistic go to Filter → Blur → Gaussian Blur and you'll be prompted with this dialog box

11. Click Ok and in the Gaussian Blur dialog box type 0.5 in the Radius and click Ok again

If you're lazy and you want to leave your button just like that it's ok, just continue to step 14 and you're finished, but if you want to take this a step further keep reading

12. Go to your button layer and double click to the right of the layers name or go to the Blending Options and enter this settings for the Stroke

13. Click anywhere in the gradient to got to the Gradient Editor dialog box and edit and add color stops like in the image below (To add color stops just click with your mouse)

•1-Color [888888] Location [0%]

•2-Color [d9d9d9] Location [25%]

•3-Color [9ea0a1] Location [50%]

•4-Color [d9d9d9] Location [75%]

•5-Color [656565] Location [100%]

14. Now add a text or shape and lower the opacity to 70% to make it more realistic, drag that layer between your gloss and button layers and this is what you should have now