Adobe Photoshop Buttons

During my senior year of high school I took a class called, "ABOS" or "Administrative Business Operating Systems." This class was taken at the Region 9 Vocational School attached directly to Kingswood Regional High School. The class focused on group processing and basic web design. The class also worked together to design and raise money for the school yearbook. The two classes, "Office 2003" and "Desktop Publishing"  were prerequisite to take the class.

One of the earliest web design projects were to create four very basic buttons with a step by step procedure. Unfortunately, I do not have the directions or assignment requirements anymore. However, these buttons are so easy it is hard to go wrong. I will try to recreate for you the steps it took to make these.

This tutorial uses Photoshop 7 ( I think)
Step 1: Choose a basic color for your button, then make a basic shape; square, rectangle, circle, oval or anything you want. Unless you know how to rasterize layers, use the selection tools. With selections, you can modify your selections to make it larger, smaller, or smoother under SELECT->MODIFY.
Step 2: Using the gradient tool, choose your basic color and white. Have the white side where you would like your light source to come from. I typically choose the upper left corner.
Step 3: Select a smaller shape within the original shape.
Step 4: Use the gradient tool in the opposite direction of the original shape.
Step 5: To make the shape more smooth, select an area around the two shapes and use Gaussian blur.
Step 6: To give the button more depth, go to FX->BEVEL&EMBOSS. Use inner bevel and adjust softness and depth as you choose.
Step 7: If you would like your button to have a shadow, go to FX->DROP SHADOW and adjust as you choose.
Step 8: If you would like, use the text tool to add text. Add effects such as BEVEL if you choose. If the button curves in a lot, consider rasterizing the text and using tools to skew or distort the text.
Step 9: Add any finals touches, and you're done! Practice and experiment to create more, better and cooler designs.

You can find many easy button tutorials here: 40 Photoshop Tutorial for Buttons and Badges.