Design Professional Glossy Buttons
With this nice & easy Photoshop tutorial you can learn how to design some glossy, professional-style buttons. Professionals that make website templates for a living can use this sort of effect efficiently and make plenty of money!
1. Preparing the Canvas/Background
First of all create a new document of any size, or open up a website template document you might have laying around. I used small document size of around 400 x 340 because I’m not going to be making a complete template. I also added a light grey gradient into the background.
2. Create the Shape
Get the Rectangular Marquee Tool 
and make a Set-Sized Selection of 140 x 140 pixels somewhere on the canvas.
3. Filling the Shape
With the selection still active, make sure you’re on a new layer and fill it with a radial gradient, using colors of your choice.
I used the colors #3e94d4 and #336fc1, a nice light/moderate blue selection. I then also applied a White (#ffffff) 1px stroke to the main layer.
4. Adding Highlights
Start by selecting the main layer again (hold ctrl and click the layer thumbnail).
Contract your selection by about 4-5 pixels by going to Select > Modify > Contract and inputting your amount in pixels.
Now, find and get out the Gradient Tool, then drag a White to Transparent gradient from the top to the bottom like so:
You should be left with a result like this:
Now get out the Pen Tool and make an orb-shape path like the one shown below.
With the Pen Tool still selected, right click the path and click Make Selection, use the default options.
Create another new layer and again with the Gradient Tool make a White to Transparent gradient from the top to the bottom of your button, so you get something like this:
Change the layer mode for this layer to Soft Light then lower the opacity if needed, I didn’t think it needed it.
5. Finishing Touches/Details
For details I started by adding a low-opacity icon in the left corner of the button. (Please note: The icons that I used in this tutorial are from either TemplateMonster, or the Web Design Library)
Add in some text for your button, so that people know what the button is for. The font settings that I used were Tahoma, 11 pt, #ffffff, with this drop shadow layer style.
I then duplicated all of the layers, moved them over so there’s about 10 pixels space between each of them then changed the gradient colors.To change the colors, simply edit the gradient for the first layer, then edit the drop shadow color for the text layer.
Well, that’s just about it for this tutorial, folks! Thanks for reading & visiting PhotoshopStar, I hope you enjoyed this easy tutorial! 
You can feel free to download the PSD file from this tutorial from here:
(110kb)
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41 responses
Just what i was looking for… I’m greatfull.
Thanks
pretty shiny, but could be shinyer.
Thanks mate. Nice…
Terrific
Excellent
Nice I’II use that… thanks litlle boy xD
Wow, nice and simple, I like it
It’s cool!!!
W00t. I love the mac-ish result, i used the end result as a background for a flash clock.
Wow…i’ve been trying to do this for over a week/month. I can’t seem to get past the 7th step. Would be nice if you also had the tool bars/window that shows you the layers. I think that would make things….more understandible.
“Change the layer mode for this layer to Soft Light and lower the opacity if needed, I didn’t need to”
—How did you do that???????———-
It’s cool
I have looking for it on polish, and I have couldn,t find.
Thanks !
These are the most clearly detailed Photoshop instructions I’ve come across so far! I’m a beginner and this was exactly what I was hoping to find. Thank you so much. Keep up the good work. P.S. If you have any instructions on how to create glassy orbs and glassy (MAC Os) style buttons, please notify me via email.
this the thing i have been looking for… Thanx a lot
another simple and good tutorial
-thnx
This small tutorial was very helpfull to me Thanks!
Awesome Tutorial. Its very Nice,
Thank you http://www.photoshopstar.com
Simple and Easy to follow. Good Illustration.
Thank you. God bless
THANKYOU! I’ve been looking for a tutorial on how to achieve this effect for AGES… thankyou thankyou thankyou.
This is excelent!! Just what I was looking for. Thanks alot
Finally!!! I’ve been searching for this technique forever. Thank you!!
It’s amazing buttons
Its very useful for me
thanks a lot
Nice !
Love this tutorial, quick and easy!
Very cool! Thanks a lot – I ll try it directly. Looks simple, so I ll get it
Flo
Simple. Gave a guidance to how to create buttons.Thank You.
Cool design tutorial!
It is a nice tutorial, BUT, it doesn’t work too well for smaller buttons. Someone should come up with a tutorial for smaller buttons.
Are thoce icons for free ? The little ones used in the left corner I mean…
I tried this with a variety of shapes – star,circle etc, works great. Thanks!
Hopefully I can spruce up my website with this.
Cool Man
Thanx.
i never knew the effect was this simple! thanks for the tutorial.
It looks really professional but I can’t do it same as your example
Really cool article man..i definitely have to give a try…
So simple, yet very good looking and easy to do. Thanks for the step by step details.
Nice Job
Beautiful, and Its Looks Like a 3D Image
thanks bunches i am 15 and got this tutorial simple pretty and easy dont for get SHINEY! i used it for my new product banner and it loooks good i used eclips tool instead of pen but still easy tutorial and turns out great
HELP! I’m stuck and require someone’s help please! I cant seem to cut out the excess/background gloss -can someone please tell me how?
Thanks in advance….