A Realistic Chrome Button

Introduction: The trick to getting a realistic-looking chrome is to remember that chrome really isn’t silver/grey. Since chrome is almost totally reflective, it picks up the colors of whatever is around it. For that reason, this tutorial uses a photo of a sunset to pick up some color and add it to our buttons.

  1. 1.

    Ok, to start off, download the following image by right-clicking the link and selecting Save Target As... This is the image that we will be using as a base for the color of our chrome.

    • reflection.jpg

    Once you have that saved, create a new document with a neutral color. (I used a 50% grey for this example.)

  2. 2.

    On a new layer, (Shortcut: Shift-Ctrl-N) create the basic shape of your button. Name this layer Button. I used one of Photoshop 7’s default shapes to create this shape, but you can choose whatever you like. Fill it with a medium-light grey, maybe around 25% or so.

  3. 3.

    As you might have realized I love using layer styles, so I’m going to put them to use here. The first thing that I am going to add is a Drop Shadow layer style. You can adjust the exact settings to your liking, but the ones I used are here.

    Without closing down your layer style dialog, move to step 4.

  4. 4.

    Next, I moved down to gradient overlay, and selected the default Copper gradient available in Photoshop 7. I edited all the different points to get each one to be completely desaturated, and ended up with settings like these. The key here is to switch your blending mode to Linear Light, which adds a very nice highlight to our button.

    Don't close the dialog, and go to step 5.

  5. 5.

    This next step is very subtle, but it adds a nice definition to the outline of the button. I took the Inner Glow option, and set the blending mode to Multiply, and picked a very dark color. My exact settings are here.

  6. 6.

    Now to get a little depth in our button, I set up a small bevel/emboss using these settings for Bevel and Emboss and these settings for Contour.

    Our layer style is now done, so go ahead and click OK and get ready to add some color to our button.

  7. 7.

    Open up the ”reflection.jpg“ file that I referenced earlier in this tutorial and select the move tool (Shortcut: V) and click and drag it onto your new document. It will come up in a new layer. Name that layer Reflection, and set the opacity to around 50%. Move the Reflection layer on top of your Button layer. Your layers palette should now look something like this.

    Blur the Reflection layer just a little bit by going to Filter-Blur-Gaussian Blur... Enter 2 for a value and hit OK.

    Now, you need to group the two layers, so you can apply the layer style on the Button layer to the Reflection layer. This is simple enough to do, just Alt-Click on the line between the two layers, and they will be grouped together.

  8. 8.

    Once the layers are grouped, you should have something that looks like the image to the right.

Additional Ideas

It may look like a chrome button now, but it is still kind of boring. Well, add some non-destructive lighting effects and a few textures, and you end up with a great looking example that might look like this: