This tutorial was made with photoshop 7, but should work for photoshop 6.x to.


Some examples of buttons made using the following technique.

This tutorial will show you an easy way to make buttons in photoshop, by using mostly layer effects. The tutorial is pretty easy, so everyone should have a chance here.

1. Start photoshop and make a new document [ctrl+n]. For this tutorial I've set the document size to 100x100 pixels. Make a new layer, select the rectangular marque tool [m], and draw a square same size as the one below. Fill it with black by pressing [alt-backslash] or by going to edit/fill/ and setting the contents to black. You should now have an image like the one below. This is the box that you see on the examples above, just without the fancy effects of course!



2. Now we are going to make the black box look 3 dimensional by adding some layer style effects. Go to the layer palette, right click on the layer 1 thumbnail and press the "blending options" text.



This will take you to the Layer effects controls.

3. The first thing that we need to do, is to get rid of the boring black color. Activate the gradient overlay function, and copy the settings from the image below. This will put a gradient on top of our black square. Pay attention to the little preview to the right.

4. Then we need to make the square look liked it's 3 dimensional. Do this by activating the bevel and emboss function. Copy the settings below.



5. The next thing we'll do is to give the box some contour, so go ahead and activate the contour function. Copy the settings from below.



6. Ok, the box is starting to look 3 dimensional now. Let's add some shadow! Activate the Drop shadow function and copy the settings from below.



Your image should now look like the one below.



7. Now we are ready to add a symbol to the button. I've chosen a M this time, but it really doesn't matter what you choose. The symbol has to be on a new layer. This is done automatically with text.



8. Well, it is looking rather boring now, so lets add some effects to it! Go to the "blending options" for the symbol and activate "Color overlay".



9. Activate "Bevel and emboss", and copy the settings below.



10. Activate "Contour" and copy the settings below.



11. Activate "Outer glow" and copy from below.



12. YEAH! Done. Now play around with all the settings and see how easy it is to get nice results! Good luck.