Glass Effect Button with Photoshop

If you have ever seen Windows Vista (especially when Aero effects turned on) or Mac OS X, you might already seen many glasslike buttons in the taskbar or menu. Now, in this tutorial we will learn how to create those cool buttons in a snap with Photoshop.

1. After creating a new image (I used 300px x 100px resolution), fill the background using Paint Bucket Tool (G) with grey colour.
   
   
   
2. Select Rounded Rectangle Tool (U) then draw a Black rectangle with Radius of 5px in the center of the image.
   
   
   
3. Now, with the rounded rectangle layer selected, go to Layer > Layer Style > Blending Options. Check on Stroke, then change the stroke colour to bright grey and change the size to 1px.
   
   
   
4. We will now adjust the glow settings on the button. With Layer Style window still open, check Inner Glow then change the colour to White and the size to 1px. After that, check Outer Glow and change the colour to White and size to 3px.
   
   
   
5. Still with Layer Style window opened, click on Gradient Overlay. Change the gradient colour to settings like image below. Note that you can change the gradient to any colour you like. Make sure that the Angle is 90°.
   
   
   
6. Create a New Layer. Then select Rectangular Marquee Tool (M), then select the button half-up like image below.
   
   
   
7. Hold Ctrl+Alt+Shift and click the layer thumbnail of the rectangular shape layer. See image below for details. Now the last selection marquee will be subtracted to match the rounded rectangle size.
   
   
   
8. With the new layer selected, reduce the selection size by going to Select > Modify > Contract > 1 pixels.
   
   
   
9. Fill the selected area with White colour using Paint Bucket Tool (G) and set its Layer Opacity to 20%. See image below for details.
   
   
   
10. Now you can enter some text into the button then you're finished!
    
    

Playing With Fire in Photoshop

In this tutorial, we will create a nice fire effect (not a font fire effect like many fire tutorials in the net) applicable for any object. Let's start new:

1. Assume that we have two layers, one is a white background and the other is object layer (in this case I use Avatech logo). The objective is to make the logo burnt with fire.
   
   
2. Create a new layer above the logo layer. Then draw random lines up and down using Soft Brush Tool (B), don't forget to adjust the brush size (I used 45px) and the opacity to 100%. Use dark red colour for the background (I used #C10909 colour) and bright red colour as the foreground (#FF0E0E). See image below for example:
   
   
3. Now set the brush size to smaller one (I used 35px) and draw dark orange lines (#FE830E), this time bottom up. Then soften the fire by using a bright orange colour (#FED40E) with bigger brush size (I used 100px) and opacity around 30%. The result is image below:
   
   
4. Using Dodge Tool (O), adjust the brush size to mid-small (I used around 35px), set the Range to Midtones and set the Exposure to around 70%. Highlight the areas which need to be brightened. See example below:
   
   
5. Now we will make the fire looks wavy, we do this by Filter > Liquify. Use Forward Warp Tool (W) then adjust the brush size to around 40 and pressure to 40. Now use your imagination to make the fire looks more realistic. You might want to refine the details of your image by reducing the brush size to around 25 and set the lower pressure (around 30).
   
   
6. Liquify is very good to create wavy look to your image, however it may introduce some inaccuracies, you can clean this unwanted effect by using Smudge Tool (R). Set the brush size to mid-small (around 30px) and set the Strength around 50%.
   
   
7. Now duplicate the fire layer and move the duplicated layer below the object layer. On the bottom layer, go to Filter > Blur > Gaussian Blur. Set the Radius around 30 to 50. Then using Smudge Tool, again create a fire trail over the blurred fire layer. Improvise yourself with the brush size this time.
   
   
8. You might want to do some finishing to this fire effect by using the Dodge Tool again and brighten the fire. Now you've learnt how to create a fire without any risk!
   
   Note that this fire effect looked even better if you combine it with dark background like image above.

Create a Realistic Lightning Effect With Photoshop

Photoshop is a very powerful photo editing program, even without any extra plugins, it can create many realistic effects, one of them is this cool lightning effect. Note that this technique is actually used by photoshop professionals but it is actually very simple to follow.

1. First, let's grab an image to be used as the background, and in this tutorial, I took the picture of a city at night from Windows Vista built-in wallpapers.
   
   
2. Now we will create the lighting by firstly create a New Layer, then use Rectangular Marquee Tool to create rectangle marquee about this size.
   
   
3. Create a linear gradient with Gradient Tool inside the rectangle marquee.
   
   
4. Go to Filter > Render > Difference Clouds. Then go to Image > Adjustment > Invert. The image now should become like this:
   
   
5. To make the lightning look more realistic, we need to adjust its levels. Do this by opening Image > Adjustment > Levels... then move the middle slider to the right to make the lightning slimmer.
   
   
6. Let's position the image by rotating it and moving it to the desired position. You may also want to resize the image by using Free Transform tool.
   
   
7. We need to blend the colours of the new layer with the colours of the background. We do this by setting the layer blending mode to Screen. See the image below to find out how.
   
   
8. Now we just need to erase the lightning edges, use Eraser tool to clean the edges. Make sure that you choose Brush mode, large feathered brush size, and the opacity should be around 70%.
   
   
9. Congratulations! You have just finished create a lightning effect, you may want to add more lightning by repeating step 1 to 8. The finished image should look like this:
   
   

Create GIF Animation in Photoshop

I've seen many tutorial to create GIF animation using Photoshop, but most of them actually use Image Ready, which was bundled with Photoshop before CS3 version. However the current version of Photoshop no longer have Image Ready included as it is now replaced with Fireworks CS3.
However, you still can create a really nice animation using Photoshop CS3, and if you have the Extended edition, you can export your animation into a wide range of video formats such as MP4, MOV, AVI, and even FLV.

In this tutorial we will try to create a simple ball-bouncing GIF animation using only Photoshop CS3. First what you need is all the images that will represent every frame in your animation. In this tutorial, I use 8 different ball images that will represent 8 different ball position. Now you are ready to create the animation!

1. Create a New... image and put all of your image frames into separate layer (Recomended tips: Sort it so that the earlier frame is in the bottom). Then make all layers invisible (by clicking the eye icon beside each layer).
   
   
2. Open animation window by clicking Window > Animation.
   
   
3. To create your first frame, make your first layer (first image) visible clicking the blank box on the left of your layer. Then assign the current frame display time by clicking the timer button (which currently should show 0 sec.) below the frame image in the Animation tab.
   
   
4. Let's now create the rest of the frames, to do that just click Duplicate selected frames button in the Animation tab. You will see another frame is created, click the new frame. This time, change the current visible image with the image in the next layer. You can do this by hiding the current layer then unhide the next layer. Note that you may also want to change the timer for each frame. Here's the completed frames will look like:
   
   
5. Now you've completed all frames for the animation, you need to publish it into GIF format. Click File > Save for Web & Devices... You can choose several options in this menu to optimize the image quality and size, but the important thing is to make sure that you've selected GIF as the Optimized file format. To finish, click Save and name the file. Here's the sample animation that we've just created.
   
   

If you want the source PSD file (to obtain the source images), you can download it here:
http://rapidshare.com/files/100891629/Source-BouncingBall.psd

Create Nice Lightsaber Effect with Photoshop

Never say that you are a real Jedi if you don't know how to create your lightsaber. Now, It's time to create a lightsaber using Photoshop! With this software, you don't have to worry about finding the right crystal for your lightsaber.

Let's start:

1. You need an image to edit, in this example, I used two Jedi wannabe warriors photo.
   
2. Now create an New Layer, then use Polygonal Lasso Tool or Pen Tool to create a blade. Make sure that you fill it with white colour.
   
3. Select Layer > Layer Style > Outer Glow. Select a colour to be your lighsaber colour, set the Opacity to 75%, Size to around 20px (depends on your image size), and Spread around 13%.
   
   
4. Now, it's time to retouch the saber. Click Filter > Blur > Gaussian Blur... then set the Radius around 1.2 to 1.7 depending your preference.
   
   
5. Now you've trained a Sith adept! Do this trick again and suit your taste to create an opposing Jedi knight. The finished photo should be like this:
   

I'll return with other photo editing tricks next time!

Create Cool Smoke Effect with Photoshop

To create a smoke effect, you don't need any additional plugin, what you need is just a Photoshop CS2 (or later version) and some creativity!

Let's begin:

1. Prepare a photo for the background. In this project, I took my burnt pizza as background.. Uhh, what a chaos but it's okay, because of this mess, I know how to make this cool smoke effect!!
   
2. Create a crude jaggy smoke shape using Polygonal Lasso Tool in a new layer. Then give the shape Linear Gradient colour ranging from grey to white.
   
3. Now brush all corners using Dodge Tool (set the Range to Highlights and Exposure to 50%).
   
4. Go to Filter > Distort > Wave, then set the Number of Generators to 4, Wavelength Min to 10 and Max to 250, and Amplitude Min to 15 and Max to 35. At last, set both Scale to 100%. Click Randomize until you get some realistic smoke shape.
   
5. Now go to Edit > Fade Wave.. and change the Opacity to 50%. After this, change the Layer Opacity (on the top corner of the Layers window) to 50% as well.
   
6. At the end, you just need to Smudge the smoke with 50% Opacity and Normal Mode. Do this until the smoke become more realistic. Here's the example of finished smoke effect:
   

Nice eh? I'll return with other photo trick next time!