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Problem with plastic tab tutorial

I am having some problems getting this tutorial to work right for me and was wondering if somebody might be able to give me some guidance. Everything works fine up until I create the second layer. When I create that layer, everything just goes white. It's like I am losing the gradient that I just did.

Does anybody have any suggestions at all? I am using adobe photoshop 8.0. Was this tut written in an earlier version maybe?

Thanks for your help in advance.

take a look at this file and see if you can follow it.

http://www.digitaldiy.com/tutes/plastic.zip

or try follow along with this: http://www.digitaldiy.com/tutes/plastictab/plastictab.html

really all u need is:

1) a gradient fill

2) a stroke

3) slightly blurred hightlight

why do u guys gotta make everything look so longwinded and complicated?

Any problems just ask

Last edited by Firebrand-NIre, March 12th, 2006 07:54 PM (Edited 2 times)

I honestly dont understand the reason to why he choose to do it by working with channels. I managed to create a similar effect with layer styles and can be applyed to any colored shape u want to and it'll still look good. Here's my settings:

Gradient Overlay:
Blend Mode: Multiply
Opacity: 20%
Gradient: "Black--->White"
Style: Linear, Align with layer is checked.
Angle: -90
Scale: 100%

Outer Glow:
Blend Mode: Normal
Opacity: 55%
Noise: 0%
Color: Black
Technique: Precise
Spread: 0%
Size: 1px
Contour: Linear
Range: 50%
Jitter: 0%

Bevel & Emboss:
Style: Inner Bevel
Technique: Smooth
Depth: 110%
Direction: Up
Size: 6px
Soften: 0px
Angle: 90
Altitude: 30
Gloss Contour: Linear
Highlight Mode: Screen, White, Opacity 100%.
Shadow Mode: Opacity 0%

___________________

//mr.oak

Last edited by mroak, March 12th, 2006 06:21 PM (Edited 2 times)

Oh yes...that's much easier. I could follow the other one just fine but I don't know if it's setting I have messed up or what but it just didn't want to work once I made that second layer.

Thanks for the reply's!!!!

This is one that Robouk wrote - he gave it to me, and I adapted it a bit, but left it as it originally was for the most part.... a "classic Robouk" tutorial

From the looks of things, he probably wrote this in a version of Photoshop that preceeded the existence of the rounded rectangle tool (hence the old channel->blur->levels trick.... and if it was that long ago, it "may" have preceeded the advent of layer styles as well (ha yeah, us "old school" designers had to rough it and make all those fancy layer styles effects by hand haha). In a good number of Rob's other tutorials, you can see a healthy dose of Layer Styles usage, so those probably came later than this particular tutorial. He probably made this one in response to whenever Apple released their "OS X-like" website layout, when the effect was really popular.

Suffice it to say..... yes, this effect can, and should be done more easily using Layer Styles at this point. Perhaps I'll add an addendum to the tutorial sometime soon, using Layer Styles.

Peace.

___________________

-- Dave
Neverside Admin

absolutecross.com

Dave... there is an updated version (should be packaged with the others I sent ya) that uses styles and is much easier and also gives better results...

=)
but yeah you were right, thhose tutorials are from photoshop 5 I think hehe

___________________

- Robouk

Cool I'll look again and find it.... most likely I noticed both but didn't look close and thought they were duplicates of the same thing (most of the ones I adapted thus far were done on my laptop in a cramped seat on the train to and from Hollywood haha...)

___________________

-- Dave
Neverside Admin

absolutecross.com

I tried to follow the tutorial here but when doing the Alpha Channel thing, the image background goes black and never returns to white - but I didn't see a screenshot showing it as black.

I have exactly the same problem as sikosis, can anyone help?
I also have the fist problem quoted with the new layer, it seems nobody explained how to make it right...