Making a Shiny Metallic Button

Making a Shiny Metallic Button

Here, I’m going to show you how to create shiny,

metallic buttons like the ones shown to the right.

I’ll also show you how you can vary their

appearance using different settings.

Solution

1 Create a raster or vector button. I’ve created both

a rounded and rectangular button in this example.

The color of the button is unimportant, as it won’t

affect the final result.

2 The fun begins! Open the Layer Style dialog box by clicking on the Add a layer style

button at the bottom of the Layers palette and selecting Outer Glow from the menu

that appears. In the dialog box, change the Blend Mode to Normal, and click on the

color swatch (light yellow by default) and change it to gray, as shown here.

3.Now, select Stroke from the styles

list in the dialog box to add a

stroke layer effect. I used a dark

gray, 1px stroke, as shown here.

4 We’re ready to add the gradient

overlay (there go those gradients

again!). Select Gradient Overlay

from the Styles list in the dialog

box, and double-click on the

gradient color swatch to open

the Gradient Editor dialog box. Set the

colors of the gradient as I’ve done overleaf.

Add more color patches to the gradient bar by clicking anywhere along the bottom

of it. Edit the color of a patch by double-clicking on it to bring up the Color Picker.

You can also click and slide color patches to adjust the appearance of your gradient.

#8e8e96 #f5f6ff #9d9da1 #c6c8d5

5 Click OK to apply all the layer styles.

Your shiny, metallic button is complete! Turn

off the Stroke style for a more subtle effect

(uncheck its checkbox to do so)—I did this for

the left button in the examples shown here.

Variations

You can vary the appearance of your shiny button by playing with the gradient editor

settings. The examples below show how the look of our shiny button changed when

different gradient configurations were applied.

Creating Buttons