Windows vista Aero Lighting Effect in Photoshop

Step 1

Before we can actually get started on the lighting effects, we need to create a background for the effect. We can’t simply use any background we choose, but rather create an appropriate canvas to begin with. Find a photograph to use as the basic palette for your background. It can be any image really… just make sure it has a lot of lights and darks in it.

Step 2

From here, we need to apply a very strong Gaussian Blur to our Photograph. Go to Filter > Blur > Gaussian Blur, and bring the slider to something high. You really want to get rid of all the detail in the photo, and have all the colors mesh together. I applied a Gaussian Blur of 75.

Step 3

Now we are going to drastically change our background by adding a Color Balance Adjustment Layer. To create this layer, go to Layer > New Adjustment Layer > Color Balance. A “New Layer” box may pop up, just click Ok through that. Next you’ll see 3 different sliders, as well as 3 separate ranges to choose from (Shadows, Midtones, and Highlights). At this point, it’s really just about experimenting with the sliders in each range until you find a suitable result. If you’re using the photograph I supplied, these were the values I used: Shadows: -37, -40, 7 Midtones: 15, 62, 0 Highlights: -34, 0, 69

Step 4

That’s it for the background. We’re done with it. You may choose to edit your Color Balance layer later on (just double click the icon next to it), but otherwise, we can move onto the effect. To begin, select the Elliptical Marquee Tool from your toolbar. Make a large selection, spanning all the way across your canvas. You may need to move your selection while making it in order to make such a large selection. If you need to do this, hold the spacbar while dragging your mouse (Don’t let go of the left mouse button). You should end up with a slightly curved selection that covers at least half the canvas.

Step 5

Create a new Layer (Above the Adjustment Layer, mind you), and grab your Brush tool from the toolbar. Choose the default brush, and then modify the size to something large, such as 200-300, and set the hardness to 0. Choose White as your foreground color. This part may take some trial and error, but essentially, you are going to brush just the very inside of the selection you just made. Try to brush evenly across the whole selection.

Step 6

Easy enough, huh? Set the blending mode of this layer to Overlay. Deselect everything (Ctrl + D or Select > Deselect). Now, transform this layer so that is is positioned near-vertically along the right side of the canvas. To transform, go to Edit > Free Transform, or Ctrl + T.

Step 7

Repeat steps 5 and 6 once or twice, and use smaller brush sizes (and possibly a larger brush size). Be sure to put each new band of light onto a new layer!

Step 8

Now that we have 2 or 3 different bands of light, we won’t need to make anymore of them. Instead, you can Duplicate the layers you’ve made, and Freely transform them to become new shapes. Remember, Ctrl + T to transform. You can get some interesting effects by holding the Alt, Ctrl, and Shift Keys while dragging the transformation nodes.

Step 9

That’s really all there is too it! For add effect, you can add some extra color into it using Color Balance Layers. In order to do this, Select several of your light layers (Ctrl + Shift + Click a Layer in the Layers Panel), and then add a new Color Balance Adjustment layer (Like we did in step 3). The Color Balance Adjustment layer will automatically create a layer mask so that it only gets applied over the selection you made. Just be sure that these new adjustment layers are on top of the lighting layers.

And here is the PSD if you wish to take a looksie.

NOTE : ALL CREDITS FOR THE ORIGINAL TUTORIAL MAKER :)

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=== For more tutorials keep visiting ;) ===
= http://photoshop-manic.blogspot.com =
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Creating Professional Menu header

Introduction…

In this tutorial you will learn how to create a simple, yet effective navigation for your website. We will show you the steps on how to create it using Adobe Photoshop. If you have any questions, please leave a comment below.

Download the PSD…

Don’t have time to do the tutorial, but would like to see the results? The PSD is available to anybody who would like to use it. You can download it here.

Lets get started…

1. First thing we need to do is create a new document. For the purpose of this tutorial, I have created a document size of 891×132.

2. We want to go ahead and unlock our background layer, so double click it to unlock it. Now that its unlocked, we can add Blending Options to it. To do so, right click the layer and choosing blending options from the menu and input the following:

3. Your document should look like this now, with a nice dark brown gradient:

4. Now we want to create our navigation bar. To do so create a selection similar to the following with your Rectangle Marquee Tool and fill it with white.

5. Go ahead and right click that layer and input the following blending options on that layer:

6. The background to your navigation should look something like this now:

7. We want to add a little 1px shine to the top of the navigation to give it a little bit more detail. Using your Marquee tool, create a 1 px selection similar to the following and fill it with white on its own layer above the rest.

**Note, you you most likely have to zoom in to get it exactly right. Use CTRL and + to zoom in (command on mac)

8. You can go ahead and deselect and then change the layer style to Soft Light and lower the opacity to about 43% and it will look something like this

9. Next thing we want to do is add the text that will represent the links in our navigational menu. I used Helvetica as my font of choice, and used these blending options on the font layers:

10. You should have something similar to this at this point:

11. Now what we need to do is create something to act as a divider for each link. To do so we will get our Marquee Tool out again. We want to make a 2 px selection like the following:

While on a new layer, fill that with white and then put in the following blending options:

12. This seems to be a little strong, so what we want to do is lower the opacity a bit on that layer to around 20% and you will have something that looks like this:

13. Now, just copy that layer and put them in between the other links and you’ll have something similar to the following

14. We now want to choose how we want active links to be represented. So, on a new layer above your navigation background, make a selection similar to the following and fill it with any color:

15. And on that newly created layer, input the following blending options:

16. Your document should be coming together now and will look like this:

Now we could stop there, but what we the fun in that be? Lets go ahead and add a search field.

17. Next thing we want to do is create another layer. With this new layer, create a selection similar to the following and fill it with black.

18. Now, right click that layer and input the following blending options:

19. Your search field will now have a little bit more detail on it, and will look something like this:

20. Next, we want to create the search button. So we want to use our Rounded Rectangle Tool from the Tools Pallet with a radius of about 5px and create a selection like the following:

21. Lets go ahead and add some blending options to that layer now

22. You will now have a dark green submit button.

24. We don’t want to stop there though. CTRL+Click the layer you just created to select the submit button. While keeping it selected, create a new layer above it and fill it with white. While selected, go to SELECT>MODIFY>CONTRACT and choose 1px. Then choose EDIT>CLEAR and you should have something like this:

25. Now, change the layer style to Soft Light, and the opacity to 47%

26. Now all you need to do is add a shine to the button to give it that fresh look, and it will look like this:

27. Thats it! Just add some text in various locations and your results may look something like this:

**If you have any problems, or have any questions about this tutorial. Please leave your comments and I will get back to you. Also, remember the PSD to this tutorial is available for download.

NOTE : ALL CREDITS FOR THE ORIGINAL TUTORIAL MAKER :)

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=== For more tutorials keep visiting ;) ===
= http://photoshop-manic.blogspot.com =
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