Creating Shapes with Selections

In the previous tutorials, you created an image using text and a custom shape. You then added some effects to your newly created layers. You’re probably ready now to take your web images to the next level. You want to learn to create shapes, as well as isolate parts of existing images. To do all that, you’ll need to use selections - another important area of Photoshop for the web designer.

In this tutorial, you’ll learn about Photoshop’s Selection tools by creating web buttons for the website of Jonathan Bing, attorney-at-law, your first client.

What Are Selections?

Selections are areas of an image you wish to isolate from the rest of an image. With this isolated portion (or selection), you can now modify this area, or paste it onto another image. For example, say you have a digital image of you with an ex-boyfriend or ex-girl- friend. You love how you look in that picture, but would love to get rid of the ex and throw in an image of your favorite movie star.

You can also use selections to make shapes that you tweak into images. In this tutorial, you’ll explore creating shapes with selections to build web buttons.

In this tutorial:

1. Creating Shapes with Selections
2. Style Requirements for Web Buttons
3. Creating a Web Button
4. Adding Using Preset Styles with Your  Web Button
5. Defining a Web Button (for a Rollover Effect)