for all you photoshop whizzes...

I'm not very good at Photoshop...
What I need is this...
I'm working on a webpage layout inspired by a desktop picture made by Coraxus.
I don't have the whole desktop online, but I do have a small trim (a little modified by me) of what on my webpage would be the navigation bar.

Marvel at it here.

Now, in photoshop, I'm trying to recreate from scratch something similar to that; brushed metal background, with a frame around it (like in the above picture), a left-hand-side navbar consisting of buttons a cool "bar" down the side (if you look at the above picture, like that matrix-style vertical bar to the left of the "buttons") a rough "body area" for posts, etc. (this shouldn't be much work) and a few aesthetical "goodies" (like, again look at the picture, the barcode and the button above it).
I don't want somebody doing this for me, just, if this is possible, a reasonably simple guide on how to go about something like that...

Hope this works out...

--IKEA

What version of Photoshop are you using? In 7.5 or better (at least), it's easy. Create a new document, fill it with 50% grey (or whatever lightness you want). Add noise, gaussian, monochromatic. I find adding it multiple times (like 4) at a low percentage (like 10) gives a better result than just doing it once. Motion blur it two times, horizontally, length 50. (The edges will look funky - crop them out...oops, I guess I should have said to make the document wider than you will need.)

Duplicate this layer, delete selections where you want the inset buttons to be. Add a Layer Style with Bevel & Emboss (for the bevel effect...use Hard Chisel and a small radius, high depth, then move the light source around) and a Gradient Overlay from black to white, going sideways, Blend Mode set to Overlay, and turn down the opacity to like 28%.

Darken the bottom layer for the darker inset areas.

Delete an area and put a techy texture below it for the "cool looking bar".

Add other stuff as wanted.

BTW, wouldn't this be better in another forum? It's extremely loosely connected to EV plugin development - if it's meant for a plugin's site.

Thanks a lot. I got the background sorted, still fiddling a little with the buttons... the problem is to make them background independent so I can put them anywhere without making it look messy.

Weepul 884, on Oct 6 2004, 11:50 PM, said:

BTW, wouldn't this be better in another forum? It's extremely loosely connected to EV plugin development - if it's meant for a plugin's site.
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Yeah, sorry. A friend (a moderator, incidentally :p) told me to post it here as it was most likely for people here to know a lot about photoshop. My apologies.