How to make a simple 3d button in Photoshop

Buttons with layer styles

Making a button in Photoshop seems like an easy task — until, say, you have to make a hundred of them in the exactly same style but different colors. Even better is if you change your mind later, and have to go through each individual button making changes to correct each of them on every single color you've used. Luckily, you never have to do this again!

Today, I will show you how easily you can make a simple 3d button in Photoshop that you can use with any type of shape, scalable and with any color you can imagine, and easily change it back if you change your mind after you finished.

Step 1

Open Photoshop and create a new document larger than the size of the button you want to make. In this case, I will set a width of 850 px and a Height of 250 px to work more comfortable.

Step 2

Press ‘D’ on your keyboard to reset the Foreground and Background colors. Switch the Foreground and Background colors by pressing ‘X’ on your keyboard (white should be the foreground color now)

Step 3

Select the Rounded Rectangle Tool (U) and be sure to have the tool mode set to ‘Shape’ in the top toolbar.

Step 4

Click once over the canvas and set the Width to 420 px, the Height to 50 px, the Radius to 10 px and click OK.

Step 5

Double click on the layer thumbnail to change the shape color, and in the color picker window set the color to #5797d6 and click OK.

Step 6

Go to Layer > Layer Style > Inner Shadow and apply the following settings:

Step 7

Still in the layer style window, check the Gradient Overlay option and click over the gradient thumbnail to edit it.

Step 8

Select the Foreground to Transparent gradient.

Step 9

Click over the right Color Stop, set the Location to 50% and click OK.

Step 10

Still in the Gradient Overlay editing window, apply the following settings:

Step 11

Now, check the Drop Shadow option and apply the following settings:

Step 12

Before clicking OK on the Layer Style window, click on the ‘New Style’ button, set the name of this style to ‘Button Shape’ and click OK.

Step 13

Click OK on the Layer Style window.

Step 14

Go to Window > Styles in order to show the Styles Panel. As you may see, the style ‘Button Shape’ we created is there.

Step 15

Select the Text Tool (T) and type your button text. In this case I am using Montserrat Bold at 16 px with a White color.

Step 16

With the text layer selected go to Layer > Layer Style > Drop Shadow and apply the following settings:

Step 17

Before clicking OK on the Layer Style window, click on the ‘New Style’ button, set the name of this style to ‘Button Text’ and click OK.

Step 18

Click OK on the Layer Style window.

Step 19

Go to Window > Styles in order to show the Styles Panel. As you may see, the style ‘Button Text’ we just created is right next to our ‘Button Shape’ style.

Step 20

Now that we have our layer styles created, let’s see how easily we can make a new button using those styles. Hide the 2 layers that we used to make our button by clicking on the eye icon next to the layer name.

Step 21

Select the Rectangle Tool (U) and click once over the canvas to display the ‘Create Rectangle’ window. Set the Width to 160 px, the Height to 50 px and click OK.

Step 22

Double click on the layer thumbnail to change the shape color, and in the color picker window set the color to anyone you like to use (in this case I will use #58bf4d) and click OK.

Step 23

With the shape layer selected, go to Window > Styles. From the styles thumbnails, click on the ‘Button Shape’ style to apply it to our shape.

Step 24

Select the Text Tool (T) and type your button text. Now I am using Lato Black at 18 px with the color set to #cefac9.

Step 25

With the text layer selected, go to the Styles Panel and click over the ‘Button Text’ style to apply this style to our text.

Step 26

To take it a step further we will add an icon to it and use one of our styles to make it look more interesting. 

Select the Custom Shape Tool (U). Be sure to have the tool mode set to ‘Shape’ in the top toolbar and from the thumbnails list of shapes select the ‘Bull’s Eye’ shape.

Step 27

Click once over the canvas. Set the Width and Height to 30 px and click OK.

Step 28

Double click on the layer thumbnail to change the custom shape color, and in the color picker window set the color to anyone you like to use (in this case I will use #3da132) and click OK.

Step 29

With the custom shape layer selected, click over the ‘Button Text’ style in the Styles Panel once to apply this style to our custom shape.

Some Final Notes

Now that we have the layer styles created, you may notice that making a button in Photoshop will only take you a few minutes, and thanks to the kind of styles we applied, you can easily use any text, icon or shape color for your next button.