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Glossy Buttons

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Thanks, and I'm looking forward to helping you with your questions!

___________________

-- Dave
Neverside Admin

absolutecross.com

Having some problems...

First...thanks for the sweet tutorials.

I am trying to make my own glossy buttons using photoshop CS2. I can follow along up to Step 4...but I can't get seem to get to anything like example 5 =) When I use the Free Transform/Path tool, I don't see the anchors that are shown in your example. Also, when I select Make Selection, it selects the outsite of what i selected, not the inside.

I really want to make this work...any suggestions...

Thanks!

Hi emartin... I'll go over this tutorial asap and see if there's any confusing spots that can be improved on (also sometimes, the tutorials were written in a previous version of Photoshop, and every now and then a feature or 2 in new versions gets changed). I will check it in CS, since that's the latest I currently use.

I'll post back once I've had a look at it (either tonight or tomorrow sometime). I'm in the process right now (amid my "site revamp") of updating aaaaaall of the tutorials, but I hadn't got to this one yet.

Peace.

___________________

-- Dave
Neverside Admin

absolutecross.com

Yikes that was a bit scary....

I actually had quite a bit of trouble completing the tutorial myself. I ended up abandoning many parts of the steps in favor of other methods that I felt were more efficient (which may or may not have been available in the version of Photoshop the tutorial was written for... but they're here now, so I'm using them).

I posted this tutorial pretty much "as is" direct from Robouk when he gave it to me. Either something that worked in Photoshop 6 (which I think he wrote this in) no longer works the same in CS, or there's some weird stuff going on - some of it I don't understand why (i.e. why use the freeform pen if you're immediately going to convert it to a selection and not use the path? A better tool in this case would be the good ole Lasso tool).....

Anyhow, I think I'm going to rewrite the whole tutorial. Thanks for bringing this to my attention. In the mean time, feel free to download the attached PSD and check out its layers. The main things to do differently are:

1) Use the Lasso tool instead of the Freeform Pen tool

2) Use Select >> Modify >> Smooth on the selections if needed

3) With the "highlight" selection up, hold CTRL + SHIFT + ALT and click on the orange shape layer (this changes your highlight selection so that any of it outside of the orange shape's borders will be removed, leaving you with the selection as in Step 5)... you can then apply your White to Transparent gradient to this selection.

4) When making your highlight and shadow gradients, first go to View >> Extras, and uncheck Extras (you can then see the gradient you applied without the distraction of the selection). Also on the shadow, turn the layer opacity down "before" doing the gradient, so you can get a better feel for how it will look as you make it.

5) One area that I haven't made my mind up on for how to do it best is the top border of the orange shape, which needs to be lightened without lightening the rest of the orange... I did this in my sample, though it was a little tricky and I will have to try a few more times to figure out what I did haha

6) Oh and Step 1 and 2 can be ignored in newer versions of Photoshop (will get rid of these steps at this point). Use the Rounded Rectangle tool, set to "Fill pixels" in the Option bar... set your radius to around 10px. Then use Edit >> Transform >> Perspective.

Anyhow, use those suggestions to hopefully get started... and I will post an updated tutorial asap.

Peace.

___________________

-- Dave
Neverside Admin

absolutecross.com

Last edited by AbsoluteCross, June 22nd, 2006 03:04 PM (Edited 2 times)

Thanks so much for the quick response. I never saw your previous design, but the new site looks great!

I'm glad to hear that the tutorial was a bit outdated, and not just me

I appreciate the updated steps and am looking forward to giving it another try.

Thanks again!
Eric

(i.e. why use the freeform pen if you're immediately going to convert it to a selection and not use the path? A better tool in this case would be the good ole Lasso tool).....

The reason for that Was WIth the Freeform Pen, you still get smooth edges where as with the lasso, it can be as jaggy as your hands are...( I think) but then the tutorials are very outdated now... There are much easier ways of doing things nowadays lol

___________________

- Robouk

Yeah it could just be version differences (like I was telling you about earlier).... when I tried with the freeform pen in CS, in some parts of the curve it constantly "snapped" my nice smooth curve, no matter what options I adjusted, to a straight line, making it look jagged. Essentially it was "oversimplifying" the path I was drawing, making it with as few points as possible, and the results after I let go of the mouse were always unexpected. Likely it worked a little different before, or else there's an option that I'm not aware of for increasing the number of points it uses to reproduce your line.... anyhow, best quick fix I could think of was Lasso + Smooth selection (if needed), which gave the results I was after

I'll get the new updated version done asap. And hey, with the advice of Rob himself, should be a piece-o-cake

Peace.

___________________

-- Dave
Neverside Admin

absolutecross.com

Dave,

I just wanted to let you know that there are others out there excited for your remake of this tutorial using CS2. I'm just trying to learn Photoshop for the first time and I thought I was going to go insane when the tutorial wasn't working out right on my machine. Glad to hear I wasn't the only one.

-Xantius-

I'm unfortunately still working with version 5.5. Is there a way to make this tutorial work for that version? I run into problems at Step 5 when I go to CTRL-click on Layer 1 I get a popup saying 'Warning: No pixels were selected.', and from there I can't move forward. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks, Raptor99

I'm unfortunately still working with version 5.5. Is there a way to make this tutorial work for that version? I run into problems at Step 5 when I go to CTRL-click on Layer 1 I get a popup saying 'Warning: No pixels were selected.', and from there I can't move forward. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks, Raptor99