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Round Web 2.0 Button with a Metal Ring, Glass effect

round web 2.0 button with metal ring preview
In this Gimp tutorial we will create a round web 2.0 button/icon with a metal ring around it. This button is very handy for download icons and such, and it can easily be customized, especially with gradients.
FINAL IMAGE PREVIEW
This is what we’re going to create, we will also look at some variations of the button afterwards.
Final image preview
Step 1
Create a new image with a white background. I made mine 600×400.
Now create a new layer and name it “ring”.
Use the Ellipse Select Tool to create a circle that measures 250×250.
250x250 selection
Step 2
Set your FG and BG color to a dark gray (333333) and white (ffffff).
Use the Blend Tool to create a gradient from the top of the selection to the bottom of it.
The gradient should be Reversed, the shape set to Radial, the Offset should be set to 20, and Adaptive Supersampling should be enabled.
Gradient settings
The offset simply makes it so that we get more white on the top of the button, while Adaptive Supersampling makes it smoother. Our image should look like this now:
Selection with radial gradient
Step 3
Shrink the selection by 25px. (Select->Shrink)
Shrink selection by 25
Use the Blend Tool to create a gradient from the bottom of the selection to the top of it.
Use the same settings as last time.
Gradient inside the other gradient
Step 4
Create a new layer and name it “sphere”. Shrink the selection by 5px (Select->Shrink), then fill the selection with a blue color (216eda) using the Bucket Fill tool.
Sphere layer
Now set your FG color to cyan (4feeff).
Create a radial gradient a little bit above the bottom of the selection and approximately 120px up.
The Gradient should be set to FG to Transparent, it should not be reversed, set the Offset to 20, and make sure Adaptive Supersampling is disabled.
Gradient settings
That should give us this result:
Cyan gradient added
Step 5
Set your FG color to white (ffffff). We’re going to use the Paintbrush tool to add a little white at the bottom of the button.
Set the opacity of the brush to 70%, use a large fuzzy brush (Circle Fuzzy 19) and set the scale to 10.
Position the brush so that half of it is inside the selection, then click just once with the mouse.
Adding white with fuzzy brush
That should give us a gentle touch of white like this:
Gentel touch of white
Step 6
We’re going to create an inner shadow, to do this we first need to create a new layer and name it “inner shadow”.
Now grow the selection by 1px. Select->Grow.
Grow selection by 1
Then we fill the selection with black (000000) using the Bucket Fill tool.
Next go to Select->Feather.
Feather the selection by 20.
Feather by 20
Now hit the Delete button on the keyboard.
Also, we don’t need the selection anymore so get rid of it by going to Select->None.
After deleting
Next, duplicate the layer so that the inner shadow becomes stronger.
Duplicate the inner shadow layer
Step 7
Create a new layer and name it “gloss”.
Create a selection where you want the gloss to be.
Gloss selection
Set your FG color to white (ffffff).
Create a gradient from the top of the selection to the bottom of it.
The Gradient should be set to FG to Transparent, the Shape to linear, Offset to 0.
Gloss gradient
Now reduce the opacity of the gloss layer to 75 so that it blends in more smoothly with the rest of the button.
Reduce opacity to 75
Step 8
Time to add some text, select a font you like and write something on the button, these kinds of buttons are very good for adding short words like GO! or a symbol such as a downwards arrow for a download button.
I simply added the letter Z. The font is Verdana Bold size 100.
text settings
Next we give the text an outline.
To do that go to Filters->Light and Shadow->Drop shadow.
Set Offset X and Offset Y to 0.
Drop shadow settings
That should give us a nice dark outline around the text like this:
Z with dark outline
Step 9
Almost done know, we just need to give the whole button an outline, and soften it a little.
Select the layer named “ring”, and then give it a drop shadow with the same settings as we used on the text.
Add dropshadow to the ring layer
Now we need to soften the button a little bit just where the inner shadow meets the metal ring.
We have two layers with inner shadow, so we need to merge them into one. In the Layer Dialog, select the top layer with inner shadow, right-click and choose Merge Down.
Next we’re going to give the inner shadow layer a Gaussian blur of 2. (Filters->Blur->Gaussian Blur)
Gaussian blur the inner shadow
That’s it, the button is done:
Round Web 2.0 Button with a Metal Ring
Variations
It’s also very easy to make variations of this button by using gradients instead of all that
blue and cyan we made in step 4 and step 5.
Here is the button with the gradient called Deep Sea, the gradient was created
from the bottom of the selection and 450px up.
Round Web 2.0 Metal Ring button deep sea gradient
Here is the same gradient from the top of the selection to almost the bottom of it, and with the gloss shaped differently.
Round Web 2.0 Metal Ring button
Here it is with the gradient Incandescent from the top of the selection to the bottom of it.
Round Web 2.0 Metal Ring button Incandescent gradient
That’s it, it’s the end of the tutorial, tell us what you think in the comments.

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