Step 7: Adding Grooves

Now that the buttons are pretty much complete, we need to add a little groove around them so they look like they're inset into the background. This is easy; we're back to simple shapes and layer styles.

Since I created the original button shapes with the rounded rectangle tool, I want to use more rounded rectangles for the grooves. I like my grooves about two pixels wide, so set the rounded rectangle radius to ten pixels... the grooves will then have a radius two pixels larger than the buttons. Create a new layer called 'Grooves' underneath the 'Buttons' layer and use the grid to help you draw a rounded rectangle under each of the buttons, or draw one groove around one button and copy & paste it under the rest.

Once you have all your grooves placed, set the layer's fill to 0%. This means the only things that will get drawn for this layer are the layer styles! It's like an opacity setting that only effects the contents of a layer, but not any effects you've applied to it. Now that you've set the fill, apply these two layer styles:

• Inner Shadow
• Bevel & Emboss

Again, just click on the layer style names above to pop open a window showing the exact settings I've used to create this tutorial, but feel free to experiment with different settings!

When complete, you should see something like the second example.

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