Adding textures to your work in Photoshop can really add a sense of detail. Depending on the textures and how you use them, they can help make a piece look more realistic, or grungy, or even cartoonish. They can really define a Photoshop piece. So, let's learn how to bring a texture image into Photoshop and use it to help our artwork look better.
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We are going to create a snazzy web 2.0 glossy button. I am using Photoshop CS2, but I'm sure these techniques will work in most versions. The size you make the button is up to you and should be customized to fit the site you are building. In this Photoshop tutorial we are going to be using tools like the gradient tool, marquee tool, pen tool, text tool, a pattern, and more.

We will be using a stripe pattern in the background of the button, so if you didn't complete the pattern in the web 2.0 header tutorial you can download it here.

Download Stripes Pattern

Let's get started.

File Setup

Open up Photoshop and create a new file. Like I said, the size is up to you - I will be making mine 200px X 50px.

Create a new layer and name it bg.

Rounded Corners or Not

First, grab the gradient tool.

Set the Foreground color to black.

Set the Background color to 50% gray.

Using the gradient tool click and drag from the bottom to the top - so that the black is at the bottom of the button.

If you want the button to be rectangular then skip to adding a stroke.

If you want the button to have rounded corners follow these steps.

Grab the Rounded Rectangle Tool

At the top set the Radius: to 10px and make sure Paths is selected.

Start in the upper left corner and pull out the shape to the lower right corner.

Right click and select Make selection… Feather Radius: 0 and click OK

Next hit ctrl+shift+i to invert the selection and hit delete on your keyboard and now the corners are rounded.

Add A Stroke

Whether you rounded your corners or not, let's add a stroke to the bg layer.

Double click on the bg layer to open the Layer Style window.

Click on stroke and set size to 1px, Postion: to Inside, and the Color: to black.

Add the Stripes

Create a new layer and name it stripes.

ctrl+left-click on the bg layer's Layer Thumbnail to create our selection.

Go to Edit->Fill… make sure Use: is set to Pattern

Now to load the stripes pattern you downloaded. Follow the directions on the image below then browse to the place you saved the stripes pattern and load it in - it will show up at the end of the list of patterns. Click it and hit OK.

Set the Opacity of the stripes layer to about 20%.

Add the Text

Grab the Text Tool (keyboard shortcut 't').

Set the options to Myriad Pro for the font Bold and 24pt - I used a light gray for the color.

Select the text and change the Vertical and Horizontal scale to match the image below.

Add the Highlight

Create a new layer and name it highlight.

Using the Pen Tool create a path similar to the image below.
Then right-click and pick Make Selection…
Click OK and fill it with white.

Once again ctrl+click on the bg layer's Layer Thumbnail to make it our selection.

With the highlight layer still active hit ctrl+shift+i to invert the selection and hit delete on your keyboard.

Change the opacity of the layer to about 15%.

Text Reflection

shew… text reflection anyone.
Right-click on the text layer Home and select Duplicate Layer… and click OK.

Go to Edit->Transform->Flip Vertically

Hold down shift and drag the reflection down below the text.

Adjust the Opacityof the reflection to 40% or so or add a layer mask which ever you like. And there you have it - were are done with our Web 2.0 style button.

Download the psd file for this Web 2.0 style button and get an extra stripes layer so you can have to colored stripes. To change the color just ctrl+click on the Layer Thumbnail to create the selection and fill it with the color you want.

Grab the Photoshop file and the image file

Download Files

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Valentine's Day is just around the corner - why not dress your Web site up with a new header. So, let's go through how to make a pretty new Valentine's Day header.

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Let's create a stop sign in Photoshop. It's a pretty simple process and good practice. So, let's get started.

Open up a new document in Photoshop and make it a decent size - I just made mine 800px X 600px so I had plenty of room (more than enough).

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Here is a pretty quick way to make yourself some distressed (or grunge) style text in Photoshop. You see this style of text a lot around the web and on a lot of clothing like t-shirts.

You'll need a good texture to use for this. Here is the image I will be using - go ahead and save it to your computer if you want I own the image so feel free to you use it for anything you want. It's a pretty simple image. Just a picture of a wooden fence in my backyard. I find that worn wood works pretty well as a texture for creating distressed type. Anyway, grab the image or use one of your own - once we get started you'll realize what type of texture image you need to make this work well.

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Popularity: 22% [?]