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Custom Molded Button

Anyone can make custom molded buttons using dingbat fonts and features included in PSP6. You don't need any special filters or third party plugins.


Open a new window, white background and immediately add a new layer (layer 1). Select your colors, one color of your choice as the background color and white as the foreground color.

Layer 1 Create a circle using the Preset Shape Tool with the following specs:

  • Type: Circle
  • Style: Stroked & Filled
  • Line Width: 22
  • Antialias checked


Add a new layer, (Layer 2).
Using a dingbat font for the phone I used Wingdings2, or any dingbat font of your choice. If you use Wingdings2, hold in the sift key and type a quote mark (") for the phone. Type in a font size of 100 (it only goes to 72), and select create as selection.

Back in your image, the selection will appear as a dotted line, moving around the text. If you release the selection your type will instantly disappear, so don't release the selection. If the entire font is on your screen you're ok, if part of it is off the screen you will need to try again. Place the curser in the middle of the window and click to go back into the text editor. Click ok and see if all of your phone is on the window. If so, we can move on.

Go to Selections/Modify/Expand/ on the Menu Bar and expand the selction to 4.

Using the Flood Fill Tool, fill your selection with the solid color you used for a background color. Using the Move Tool, position the phone in the center of the circle. If all has gone well, the phone should be large enough to fill the inside of the circle, just barely touching the edges.

Deselect any selections and merge all of the layers.


 
Once the layers are merged, use the Magic Wand to select the figure again, this time filling it with a Sunburst Gradient fill. Adjust the settings so that the white part of the sunburst is in the top left corner of the preview square.


Now for the fun part. Go into Image/Effects/Outer Bevel and select the following settings:

  • bevel
  • smoothness 13
  • depth 5
  • ambience 0
  • shininess 0
  • light white
  • angle 315
  • intensity 38
  • elevation 47


 
Invert your selection. Using the Flood Fill tool set to solid, fill the interior areas of your figure with the solid color you selected as the background color.

Almost done. Invert the selection one last time and add a drop shadow with the following settings:

  • Opacity: 100
  • Blur: 13
  • Horizontal: 0
  • Vertical: 0

If you've followed these instructions to the letter you'll probably want to resize the final result for use on the web, esp. if you're using it for a button. ;)