Simple Glossy Navigation Bar Design in Photoshop

Simple Glossy Navigation Bar Design in Photoshop

Posted on December 20th, 2008 under Web Graphics

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In this tutorial, I will show you how to design a Modern Glossy Navigation Bar in Photoshop. This is a beginner tutorial with a just few simple steps, aiming to help beginner web designer for making their first-ever web page.

Skills involved in this tutorials are selection tools, layer blending options, and some simple gradiant filling techniques.  Have a go!

Here is a preview of the final result of this tutorial:

navi bar final 500x300 Simple Glossy Navigation Bar Design in Photoshop

OK let’s get started!

Step 1

Firstly let’s create some background to work with.

Create a new document sized 1000*600px, use the Gradient Tool (with Foreground colour #333333 and Black ground colour #000000) to fill the background layer.

1 grad fill 500x300 Simple Glossy Navigation Bar Design in Photoshop

Step 2

Create a new layer and grab a big round brush (I used a 700px brush) with white color, set its opacity and flow to 50%, do several left-clicks (see image below for details):

2 brush light 500x300 Simple Glossy Navigation Bar Design in Photoshop

Step 3

Create a new layer named “Navi Bar”. Use the Rectangular Marquee Tool to make a selection and fill the selection with Black Colour.

3 rectangular marquee 500x299 Simple Glossy Navigation Bar Design in Photoshop

Apply Drop Shadow layer blending option to this layer:

3 drop shadow 500x367 Simple Glossy Navigation Bar Design in Photoshop

Here is the effect so far:

3 effect so far3 500x296 Simple Glossy Navigation Bar Design in Photoshop

Step 4

Hold down the Ctrl key and left click on the “Navi Bar” layer to load the selection.

After the selection is loaded, hold down the Alt key and use the Rectangular Marquee tool to make another selection over the existing selection. This will subtract our existing selection.

3 subtract 500x298 Simple Glossy Navigation Bar Design in Photoshop

3 subtract 2 499x299 Simple Glossy Navigation Bar Design in Photoshop

Step 5

Maintain the selection from the previous step, create a new layer called “glossy” and fill it with White colour. Set the layer opacity and fill opacity to around 30%.

5 fill 499x299 Simple Glossy Navigation Bar Design in Photoshop

Type some page texts onto the “glossy” layer:

5 text 500x300 Simple Glossy Navigation Bar Design in Photoshop

Step 6

Now we can add some mouseover effect! To do this, create a new layer in between the text layer and the “glossy” layer and name it “mouseover”.

Then use the Rectangular Marquee tool to make a selection outside a page text, fill it with White colour and set the layer opacity and fill opacity to around 30% (in layer blending options).

Apply a colour overlay of your choice. I used the following settings:

6 colour overlay 500x365 Simple Glossy Navigation Bar Design in Photoshop

6 overlay 500x299 Simple Glossy Navigation Bar Design in Photoshop

That’s it for this tutorial! You can add some final touches using preset brushes and apply some texture effects in the background.

Here is my final result of this tutorial:

navi bar final 500x300 Simple Glossy Navigation Bar Design in Photoshop

Hope you enjoy this tutorial and find is useful when you design your own website! If you would like to find how to translater the design into working web pages, study some XHMTL and CSS~ There are plenty of tutorials available on the net about this topic.

If you have any question, just drop me a line below. Thanks and have a nice day :)

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  • http:ghawyy.com/blog ghawyy

    its really great tut and sample too i apply it and i like it i will design one like it to my blog thank you so much
    i wish u keep publish nice tut like that

  • goutham

    hey how u got that leafy curves in background

  • http://www.psdvault.com James

    Hi goutham~
    You can download some free leafy brushes from qbrushes.com and load it into Photoshop, and then simply paint over the background layer.
    Hope this helps :)

  • http://www.myspace.com/raggamanvibez RAGGAMAN!!

    Bello!! :D

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    I did not expect this on a Thursday. Array. Found your post “Simple Glossy Navigation Bar Design in Photoshop” when I was searching for “scrap gold”. Array. Array.

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  • http://blog.zforum.ro Maxi

    Sweet thanks you . Good tutorial

  • http://www.uprinting.com/Business-Cards.html Business Card Printing

    Simple and classy but still with your artistic touch. Very, very nice. Thanks for sharing this tutorial! Keep up the good work!

  • carlos

    wow. Your site is having issues. The top is cool but then cuts off a 1/4 of the way down to black. And the navigation is hard to read. It has light green text on a white background. You all need to fix this a bit. I love the site but man it is hard to find you navigation and a bit glaring with the stark contrast from white to a sudden black. Check it out.

  • carlos

    I take my last comment back. The site just took a while to load. Are you using a background image or background color in the CSS or HTML for your white background?
    Either way it was kind of funny looking for a bit. But looks good now.

  • http://designer-depot.com/?p=110 Simple Glossy Navigation Bar | Designer Depot

    [...] design a Modern Glossy Navigation Bar in Photoshop. via psdvault April 12, 2009 | In design, photoshop | [...]

  • Joe

    How Do YOu Set One As Your Own Navigation Bar?

  • http://www.miraztutorials.com huwaw69

    How did you make the flower effect on your final result? its really very attractive…

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    [...] 16. Un menu tout en décorations [...]

  • http://Website vivek

    its amazing work.,which gives me lot of interest to study more works.

  • http://www.efhamcomputer.com efham computer

    its amazing work ,thanks

  • http://Website arnel

    hey.,.,how can i use the picture that i have made for my web design,.,????

  • http://Website thecoder

    can u tell me how to use them in webpages..

  • http://Website John

    Hi, How would you take that navigation bar out of that, I don’t think you would want the background. I have a button in photoshop and i want just the button, but i am unable because the canvas size is big and when i save it, it saves with a big background. I want to import it into flash or dreamweaver.

  • http://www.depannageinformatique-95.fr depannage informatique

    It’s realy greatest pics ! i love it, very good master in photoshop