Creating Colored Gel Pills the Easy Way

Specially created for Saira Ifzal

Objective: Advanced Interglow Techniques

Tools Used: Pen Tool, Flood Fill Tool, Pick Tool, Move Tool, Selection Tool, Arrow keys, Delete Key

Palettes Used: Materials Palette, Layers Palette, Tools Option Palette

Effects Used: Gaussian Blur, Gradients, Manual Color Correction

Types of Layers Used: Vector, Raster

This tutorial is similar to our Glass Pill Button for Psp 10, only this time, we're going to show you a couple of advanced techniques to making a nicer, smoother inner glow. Then we'll show you the proper way to quickly change it's color, while still maintaining a consistant look across all of the other buttons.

Step 1

Start by creating a new image 300 X 100 with a white background. (For those of you that may wonder why the screen shots for the tutorial have a different color background then the recommended white background, it's simply to enhance the look of the tutorial itself for this site, your welcome to use any color you would like, the outcome will still be the same.)

On the Tools toolbar, select the Pen Tool (V)

On the Tool Options palette, click on the Line Style drop-list, and click Round.

NOTE: If you do not have "round" in your drop down list as a selection, you may create it as a custom line by following the steps outlined in Step 1 of our Signature Plates tutorial.

Mode: Draw Lines and Polylines, Connect Segments and Show Nodes should be checked, Line style: Round and Width: 80

On the Materials palette, set your Foreground color to #b4bbb6

Starting from one side of our canvas, hold down the Shift key on your keyboard (this will help keep a straight line) and draw a line.

TIP: You'll notice that on one end of the line, the node is a hollow box, and on the opposite end, the node is a solid box:

This solid node represents which end of the line is currently active. This allows you to use the arrow keys on your keyboard to adjust the either the length (left or right), or the angle (up and down) of the line. For this tutorial you may want to use either the Left or Right arrow key(s) to adjust the length of the line. To adjust the opposite end, simple click on it's node to make it active, and make any necessary adjustments:

Layers > Convert to Raster Layer

Selections > Select All [Keyboard shortcut: CTRL + A]

Selections > Float [Keyboard shortcut: CTRL + F]

Selections > Defloat [Keyboard shortcut: CTRL + Shift + F]

Selections > Load/Save Selection > Save Selection To Alpha Channel... > Save

Don't de-select yet!

Step 2

Layers > New Raster Layer... > Ok

Selections > Modify > Contract... > Number of pixels: 1 > OK

On the Materials palette, set your Foreground color to #bdbac5

On the Tools toolbar, select the Flood Fill Tool (F) and fill the selection:

Layers > New Raster Layer... > Ok

Selections > Modify > Contract... > Number of pixels: 3 > OK

Selections > Edit Selection

On the Tools toolbar, select the Pick Tool(P)

You'll notice that the selection is now a salmon color indicating that we are in edit mode:

Start by moving the selection closer to the top of the image (you should also be able to use the Up or Down arrow(s) on your keyboard):

Now the best part of this tutorial. The magic that creates a really nice looking inner glow.

This is going to be mostly by site, what you want to do here is bring both the left and right sides in noticeably. That means not to crazy, but it certainly stands out:

We'll take the selection out of edit mode.

Selections > Edit Selection

On the Materials palette, set your Foreground color to #b6b8be and your Background color to #91929f.

On the Materials palette, click on the Foreground color and select the Gradient tab.

Click on the image to open the available gradients.

Select Foreground-background and use the following settings:

On the Tools toolbar, select the Flood Fill Tool (F) and fill the selection:

Selections > Load/Save Selection > Load Selection From Alpha Channel... > Load.

Selections > Modify > Contract... > Number of pixels: 2 > Ok.

Adjust > Blur > Gaussian Blur > Radius: 4 > OK.

While were here, let's add a bottom highlight to this.

Step 3

Layers > New Raster Layer... > Ok

Now the magic. This is the part that gives it the really nice looking inner glow.

On the Materials palette, click on the Foreground color. It should already be on the Gradient tab.

Click on the image to open the available gradients.

Select Fading white and use the following settings:

On the Tools toolbar, select the Flood Fill Tool (F) and fill the selection:

We only want this extra highlight on the bottom of the image, so lets remove all of the excess.

Selections > Edit Selection

On the Tools toolbar, select the Move Tool (M)

Using the arrow keys on your keyboard, move the selection up three pixels:

Take the selection out of edit mode.

Selections > Edit Selection

Now, hit Delete on your keyboard

Selections > Select None

Your image should now look similar to this:

Layers > New Raster Layer... > Ok

Selections > Load/Save Selection > Load Selection From Alpha Channel... > Load.

Selections > Modify > Contract... > Number of pixels: 20 > Ok.

Alright. So far so good. What we want to do now is move this selection up towards the top of the image.

On the Tools toolbar, select the Selection Tool (S)

While holding down on your right mouse button, grab the selection and move along the top of the image:

On the Materials palette, click on the Foreground color. It should already be on the Gradient tab.

Modify the previous Fading white gradient settings to the following:

On the Tools toolbar, select the Flood Fill Tool (F) and fill the selection

Selections > Select None

Your image should now look similar to this:

This is looking really nice, but let's knock off just a bit of the shine appearance so that it blends better with the rest of the image.

On the Layers palette, the Raster 5 layer should already be highlighted. Lower the layers Opacity down to around 71:

Now let's finish this image up by placing what we've created so far into a group.

On the Layers palette, select the Raster 1 layer

Layer > New Layer Group... > OK

Drag the other layers into the group. Remember to keep them in the same order when you move them. When you're finished it should look similar to this:

Your final image should now look similar to this:

Step 4

Changing colors on the fly.

We want to create a copy of this entire group to work with and hide the original.

On the Layers palette, make sure that the Group 1 layer is highlighted.

Layers > Duplicate

On the Layers palette, turn off the visibility for the original Group 1 layer:

Before we move into the next stage for this image, let me explain my train of thought for this. While there really are no rules carved in stone for this, and I'll admit it's more of a personal preference, there is a wrong way to colorize this image. That wrong way consists of merging the copy of Group 1 layer together and colorize the entire image:

It does produce a great looking gel style button, but the right way is to highlight the Raster 3 layer on the Layers palette

Then apply the color.

Adjust > Hue and Saturation > Colorize... You may apply any color settings here that you want.

My image currently looks like this:

If you really want to see some awesome effects, let's correct a mistake with Paint Shop Pro Photo XI itself.

View > Customize... >

Highlight the Unused Commands under Categories, and locate the Manual Color Correction... under Commands:

You'll have to drag the command onto one of your other menus:

Once you've made that simple quick fix to the program itself, make sure that the Raster 3 layer is highlighted on the Layers palette.

Bring up the Manual Color Correction dialog box and make sure that Preview on Image is checked.

Now just cycle through the various colors using the dice icon (Randomize Parameters) until you find the color that you want.

Remember that if at any time the color doesn't seem to flow to well with the rest of the image, or stands out to hard, just like we did with the Fading white gradient in the previous step above, simply lower the Opacity on the Raster 3 layer.

After you've reached the color that you want,

Layers > Merge > Merge Group

Want another color button?

On the Layers palette, make sure that the Group 1 layer is highlighted.

Layers > Duplicate

Turn on the visibility for the Copy of Group 1 layer on the Layers palette and repeat the steps above. By applying any/all effects to just the Raster 3 Layer, your buttons will maintain a consistant look across all of the other buttons.

My final image currently looks like this:

Just use your imagination with it and have fun!