Build Beautiful Buttons in Photoshop, Part I

Vector Buttons

If you're not happy making raster buttons, you can create vector shapes and apply the gradient effect to them. Open the Layer Style dialog by clicking on the Add a layer style button at the bottom of the Layers palette and selecting Gradient Overlay... from the menu that appears. The gradient overlay options will be displayed.

Adjust your gradient by clicking on the Gradient patch in the Layer Style dialog. This will bring up another dialog, the Gradient Editor, shown here, which you can use to set your gradient options.

The colors of your gradient are represented in tiny color patches underneath the gradient bar. Double-click on them to bring up the Color Picker -- you can use this to change the color of the patch (and consequently, your gradient). Add more colors by clicking anywhere along the bottom of the gradient bar -- a new color patch will be placed there.

Click OK in both dialogs, and voila! You've got your two-toned gradient button. And because we've "overlaid" our gradient onto our button, the original color of the button is inconsequential!

Making a Round Push-button

In this solution, we'll call on the trusty gradient button-creating skills we learned in the solution "Making a Gradient Button" to make a round push-button like the one shown here.

Solution

1. Create a circular gradient button on a new layer.


2. On another layer, create a circular gradient button that's a bit smaller than the first. The direction of the gradient on this button should be the opposite to that of the first button -- in this example, my big circle has a white-to-gray diagonal gradient and my small circle has a dark-to-light diagonal gradient. (Don't be too concerned about lining the shapes up just yet.)

   

3. Select the layer for the smaller circle from the Layers palette. Hold down Ctrl (Command on a Mac) and click on the layer thumbnail for the larger circle to create a selection based on the pixels of that layer, as I've done here.

   

4. After you've created the selection, select Layer > Align Layers To Selection > Vertical Centers as shown here. This will vertically align the center of the small circle with the center of the larger one.

   

5. Finally, select Layer > Align Layers To Selection > Horizontal Centers, and just as you suspected, the centers of both circles will align horizontally.

Your push-button is complete!