This tutorial is a more advanced Photoshop tutorial and assumes you know all of the basics to using the program. This tutorial was creating using Photoshop CS5 and therefore some of the controls may be different depending on what version you are using.

 

Step 1) Making the Background for your navigation

Create a new document, I chose 1200 x 600 and make sure you set the background to transparent. You can then set your foreground color to #bebebf and your background to #d2d2d2. From here choose your linear gradient tool and drag from the top of the canvas to the bottom.

From here we will add some texture to the background. To do this go to Filter > Noise > Add Noise and use 20% for the amount of noise and set it to Gaussian and monochromatic. We will now blur the background to give us a more refined look and feel. To do this go to Filter > Blur > motion blur. Make sure there is no angle set and I used 250px for the distance.

Around the edge of the canvas you should now see where the motion blur fades, you want to make a selected and simply crop the outer edges of the blur.

 

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Step 2) Creating the Navigation

Select the rounded rectangle tool and give it a radius of 7-10 pixels based on your choosing. Drag the rectangle out into the center of your canvas. One you have dragged the rectangle onto the page; add the layer styles that are pictured below.

 

 

We now need to create our own custom texture, so to do this create a new document and make it 4x4 pixels and then use the colors from the picture below.

 

Once you have created it, go to edit > define pattern. You can now close this file as we won’t need it anymore. Back in our main application we want to make a selection of the rectangle. Once you have it the selection, create a new layer above your navigation and select the paint bucket tool. We will now be filling this layer selection with the custom pattern you created in your other document. Set this layer’s blend mode to difference so it blends in better with the rectangle object.

 

 

Step 3) Creating the navigation buttons

Select the type tool and type out whatever navigation links you want at the bottom of the navigation. Once you have completed this, add the following layer styles which will be pictured below.

 

In between each of these links we will be creating a divider to separate, so begin by adding two 1px vertical lines next to each other. The lines should start at the very top of the navigation and end at the very bottom. Make sure that the first line is black, and the second is white; once you have done this set this layer’s blend mode to soft light and its opacity to 50%.

 

Step 4) Creating the navigation orbs

Select the elliptical marquee tool and drag out a small ellipse above one your navigation links. Select the gradient tool and with a linear gradient drag a black to gray gradient over the ellipse. I did not provide hex codes as the color choice of gray and black is up to you.

With the elliptical marquee tool again, create another circular section, this time inside of your last one. Fill this selection with #8e8e8e and make sure to keep the selection active. Create a new layer above your gray circle and set the foreground color to white and then select the gradient tool with a radial gradient, and change the gradient type to white to transparent.

Make sure you zoom into your selection and then drag the gradient from the top left corner, make sure to keep the drag short as you don’t want the gradient being too large. Now change the gradient type to linear and create a new layer and do the same thing from the bottom of the circle. Keep adding highlights and changing the opacity until you get the desired look you are going for.  Now simply duplicate this for all the buttons that will be on your navigation.

 

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Step 5) Creating the hover state

We are going to be adding a hover state to one of the buttons, so simply choose one and add a gradient overlay using the colors of your choice to the button.

Make a selection using the rectangular marquee tool, the selection should be made around your button dividers. Once you have made the selection around the button fill it with #dddddd and then set the blend mode to overlay.

Finally, using the Polygonal lasso tool create a triangular shape in the same color as the background, and add a drop shadow using the settings below.

 

 

 

Congratulations you have finished this tutorial on creating chrome style navigation. As always the source files will be available for you to download if you have any issues.

 

 

 

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