Not throwing tomatoes

doren — Sun, 22 Oct 2000 23:26:11 +0000

But you can say that about anything.

"Socket wrench swivel extensions are toys."

"Macs are toys."

"Dreamweaver is a toy."

It's just another tool in the box. You can do anything you want with Photoshop imagewise. The amount of time you want to spend is up to you. Same with Dreamweaver vs. Hardcoding etc, etc ad infinitum. The fact that I was able to figure out how to make a credible translucent plastic button in about 10 minutes is the proof. Less toys = more time spent figureing out the process. There is no one way to do things in Photoshop. You could probably do this about 20 different ways and still get the same end result. If I spent about 10 more minutes perfecting the process then I could set up an action sequence to make hundreds of buttons. So what's the diff?

Mike Fisher — Sun, 22 Oct 2000 14:55:41 +0000

Just a little comment about Eyecandy: it's a toy. It's luster becomes readily less and less as one tries to do more advanced things.

Now, I must go build my "Rotten Vegetable Sheild" for the oncoming onslaught..

doren — Sun, 22 Oct 2000 07:00:30 +0000

Oops, actually the glass helps but most is done using Photoshop 5.5 layer filters.

Glass Filter

doren — Sun, 22 Oct 2000 06:55:49 +0000

EyeCandy plug-ins for Photoshop has a 'glass' filter that will take you most of the way there. You can adjust the You'll need to do a little tweeking and layering but with a little effort you'll get it.

Excellent plug-in suite, the best I know of.

I've been able to make a rough copy in about 10 minutes using:

1)Make an oval on a layer.
2)Use Layer/effects Bevel/inner bevel. The trick here is to
next use layer/effects/Create layer then merge the resulting layers.
3)Glass filter for the highlight, but you could probably do this with any chrome filter or the like.
4)A type layer with a drop shadow
5)Use Layer/effects drop shadow with a wide purple shadow. Again use layer/effects/Create layer to seperate the drop from the button.
6)Put an additional dark drop shadow on the button.

I think if you add a pillow emboss to the lettering and be careful about the specs for each you'll have it.

I'm going to your site I'll try to email my rough copy to you.

ah!

Suzanne — Sun, 22 Oct 2000 05:53:39 +0000

thank you -- I see what you were doing now.

Phong has something called ePlastic and Mark has a bunch of text effects, but I didn't find the plasticy one.

Suzanne

Adam Oberdorfer — Sun, 22 Oct 2000 00:50:43 +0000

Thanks for the suggestions. I was trying to link directly to the image like it is now.

Tutorials

Suzanne — Sat, 21 Oct 2000 23:17:26 +0000

Argh. Why didn't you just link to http://www.apple.com ? Why steal their graphic?

Anyway,

http://www.phong.com
http://www.designsbymark.com
http://www.alexdg.com

There are more, but those three have tuts on plastic based on the ... yup, apple site.

Suzanne