Super Widget Interface Tutorial

4. Finish Main Base Shape Cont.

Screen Area

- Create a new layer set and name it "Screen Area".

- I made the screen with the path, and I have included the path for you to work with if you choose to do it that way. Or you could create a 298 x 74 rectangle, subtract the top left corner with a circular selection, take the selection into a new channel, deselect, blur the channel, and then smoothe it out. This process is shown below:

- Once you have it smoothed out, activate the channel's selection, and then create a new layer within the Screen Area layer set and call it "screen color".

- Fill the screen's selection with #39B0D2.

- Keeping the selection active, create a new layer called "inset", place it beneath the screen color layer but still in the same layer set, and expand the selection by 3 pixels (Select -> Modify -> Expand).

- With foreground as black and background as white, hold shift and apply a foreground to background gradient to the selection. Start high above the screen, and finish well below it. If you don't get it right the first time, keep trying different starting and finishing points until it looks like mine.

- Deselect, and apply a Gaussian Blur of 0.3 to the inset.

- Create a new layer above the screen color layer and call it "large inner shadow".

- Activate the screen color's selection and apply a black stroke of 6 pixels inside.

- Then give the stroke a gaussian blur of 7, and lower the opacity to 70%.

- Create a new layer, and call it "small inner shadow".

- Keeping the screen color selection active, apply a black stroke of 2 pixels inside.

- Then give it a gaussian blur of 3, and lower the opacity to 70%.

- Make a new layer called "bot hlight" and activate the screen colors selection.

- Contract the selection (Select -> Modify -> Contract) by 2 pixels and apply a white stroke of 2 pixels inside.

- Deselect (ctrl + D) and erase the top and left side of the stroke with a large, soft brush (27 pixel, soft brush).

- Then, give the resulting stroke a gaussian blur of 2.0, and lower the opacity to 70%.

- Create a new layer called "top left hlight".

- Activate the screen color's selection, contract by 2, and give it a white stroke of 2 pixels inside.

- Apply a gaussian blur of 1, and erase everything except the top left curved part, with a 13 pixel, soft brush. Drop the opacity to 50%.

- Take some time erasing and scultping the top left highlight to make it look like mine.

One More highlight to go on the screen.

- Create a new layer and name it "top skinny hlight".

- Activate the screen color's selection, contract by 2, and put a white stroke of 1 pixel inside.

- Then, take the eraser, with the 13 px soft brush, and erase the bottom and right sides and use lower and lower opacity as you do the top right and bottom left sides. We want it to be solid and vibrant, but when it gets towards the right hand and bottom sides of the screen, the light will be less and less. Take a close look at my top skinny hlight layer to see what I mean.

- Take the opacity of the top skinny hlight layer to 70%.

- Make a new layer and call it "stroke".

- Activate the screen color's selection once more, and give it a black, 1 pixel stroke inside. Then lower its opacity to 50%.

We are done with the screen and this is what you should have:

Right Button Area

- Create a new layer set and name it "Right Button Area".

- Then, make a new layer and call it "inset area".

For the inset area, I just used the same technique listed above to make the screen area. A 73 x 35 rectangle, subtracted a circular selection from the bottom right corner, filled the selection, made a new layer with a 21 x 21 circle on it, positioned the circle where it aligned smoothly with the top and curved part, then merged the layers. I then brought it into a new channel, blurred it by 1.7, and smoothed it out using the Levels Dialogue.

- See if you can do it using my explanation above and the screen area example. If you just can't get it to look right, use my shape but don't give up without trying atleast!

So you should now have something pretty close to this shape (notice that the bottom edge is lined up closely with the bottom of the screen):

- Once you have the shape looking like mine, drop its opacity to 70%, lock it's transparency (press the / key), and apply a black to white gradient to it.

- Make a new layer called "button shape".

With your foreground color as #B8B8B8, make a rounded rectangle with a 3 pixel radius that is 51 x 29, and place it as in the screenshot:

Now we have to add the shadow and two highlights.

I will give you two options to create the button shadow, one is with layer styles and the other method is to use the airbrush. Both look about the same. I prefer to use the airbrush since it gives a little more control. However, the layer style method takes less time. So the choice is up to you. I recommend trying both if you have the time.

Layer Style Method

- With your current working layer as button shape, apply the following Inner Shadow Layer Style:

Airbrush Method

- Make a new layer and call it "button shadow".

- With black as your foreground, and the button shape's selection active, take the airbrush and choose the 17 pixel, soft brush, and set the opacity of the airbrush to 10%.

- Now, just go around the edge of the selection and place shadows on the inside of the button. Make a thicker shadow on the bottom edge.

- So now you should have a button with shadows around its edges like this (notice how far the bottom shadow comes up):

- Make a new layer and call it "bot hlight".

- Activate the button shape's selection, and grab the airbrush with white as your foreground.

- Take the opacity of the airbrush to 40%, and keep the 17 px, soft brush (remember that ctrl + h toggles off the marching ants so you can see what you're doing, but don't forget to turn them back on when you're done).

- Hold down shift, start well outside the button shape, drag straight across the bottom, and finish well outside also.

This gives the bottom edge a slight highlight. You will have to make a few passes back and forth. Keep trying until you get it to look like this:

- Make a new layer and name it "top hlight".

- Do the exact same thing as you did for the bottom highlight, but this time extend it a little farther down and make a couple more passes to make the top highlight brighter:

- Now, make a new layer called "stroke", activate the button shape's selection, and give it a black stroke of 1 pixel inside.

- Deselect the selection.

- Create another layer and name it "right circle".

- Draw a 12 x 12 circle on the layer and fill the selection with #C1C1C1.

- You can deselect now, and apply the following layer styles to the right circle layer:

Bevel and Emboss:

Inner Shadow:

- Make a new layer and call it "circle hlights".

- Activate the right circle's selection, grab your brush tool, and make sure its opacity is 70%.

- With white as your foreground, add a slight highlight at the bottom and top (it helps to temporarily hide the selection, ctrl + h):

- Keep the selection active, make a new layer called "circle stroke" and apply a 1 pixel, black stroke outside.

- Drop the circle stroke layer to 60%.

So we are done with the right button area and this is what you should have now:

If you look at your copy of the interface that came with the tutorial, you will notice that I have included some extra layers on this part. It is just to show you that you can modify things to your liking if you choose to do so. Play around with it and have fun!

That completes the main base shape part. All we have now is the bottom curve, top shape and some wires and miscellaneous items and we're done!

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