If you're looking for a different way to improve the "straight-text" kind of look on your buttons and interfaces then this tutorial may hold the answer for you!

For an example I am going to use the Photoshop image that I created for last weeks YNOT NEWS called "Bullet Buttons" and if you haven't done that yet I'd advise you to check the YNOT Archives and follow through with that first.

1. Open the PSD that you created in last weeks tutorial.

2. Create a text layer and put in your initial with a White fill. An "A" for me :) Try and use a blocky font like Arial Black or Impact so that it fills the sphere nicely.

3. From the Layers window - WINDOW >> SHOW LAYERS - change the Blend Mode from "Normal" to "Soft Light".

4. Right click your text layer and duplicate it. Change the text color to black in your new layer.

5. Using the Move Tool and your arrow keys (on the keyboard) move the new layer up 1 pixel and to the right by 1 pixel.

6. Because this has made the letter kind of hard to see we are going to duplicate the new layer by Right-clicking it and choosing "Duplicate Layer". As you can see this has made it quite dark.

7. Change the opacity of the layer from 100% down to about 50% but you may not want it this dark. Change the setting to your own liking.

8. One final step is to Right click your original Text Layer and choose LAYER EFFECTS. Apply an INNER SHADOW to the letter. Doesn't that look great?

By Andrew
BlueDesignStudios