A Glossy Starburst Tutorial
So here is the easyway to make those shiny, glossy, snazzy, glassy, sleek, web2.0 style, clean, bubbly, starburst, badges things. like so.
To begin: open up shop. 1) Press CTRL + N (open new document) make the size whatever you like – I did mine 500x 500px. background white >OK
when doc is open – Choose a foreground color you want to work with I chose dark blue.
2)Select the shape tool – choose the custom shape tool – than from the shapes library up in the properties panel on top of screen…
select the “starburst shape” if you cant find one than click on that small arrow to the right of the shapes menu and click on ALL – this should bring up all the custom shapes which includes a starburst shape. Now with the starburst shape tool selected go to the middle of your work stage and drag out a nice shape (holding down on shift to keep perportions.) name that layer base.
With the base layer selected hold down on ctrl and click the square thumbnail on that layer. This will make a marquee selection of the starburst shape.
Create New layer .(SHIFT+CTRL+N) -place it above the base layer. – name this layer brightness. and now select that layer.
Now with the brightness layer selected – go to select >modify>contract and enter the number 1 pixels> ok.
While selection still active go to your color pallete and choose a nice bright color as foreground color of the same family as your starburst shape – for example: if your starburst is dark blue than now you should be choosing a bright/light blue.
Make sure that in your in your properties on top of the page show that your gradient tool is set to FILL TO TRANSPARENT
> Now grab the gradient tool and place the cursor just below your current marquee selection preferably at the bottom right corner and drag from bottom right corner up towards the top left corner and just about half way through that selection release the dragging. (Joke – no connection to tutorial: how do you take a dog with no legs for a walk? take it for a drag)
Your starburst contracted selection should still be active do not deselect. – now go create a new layer and place it above the others and select it. NOw name that layer “gloss” ( if your marquee selection for some reason has been deselected than just go to SELECT>RESELECT .) get the eliptical marquee tool (circular one) and with your one hand holding down on alt and shift – go drag a circle/oval selection partially over the top left area of your star. This should cut out a peice of your selection. Like so
Go change your foreground color to white and than press alt+backspace to fill that selection. Now press ctrl+D to deselect. you should now be on the gloss layer – GREAT! now go and lower the opacity of that layer from to about 27%.
Now to top it off. Go select to the base layer and double click on it (or right click and select “blending options”) select the drop shadow effect and lower the opacity to 29-32% – the rest leave as default.
YOUR DONE CONGRATS now go get your self a coke (or diet) and you can add any text you want on top of that usually chunky texts go well with this. ENJOY. Any questions? leave a comment and I will try to answer asap.
Have a good tutorial? Send me an email
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Comments
Where I am from they say “al ta’am v’reyach ain l’hitvakeiyach”(hebrew) on flavor and smell there is no arguing. I guess it is universal.
If you completed the tut I would be happy to post it as a resource for other readers.
Send me the info and link to <a href=”mailto:aaronova@gmail.com” title=”MAIL HERE” rel=”nofollow”>my email </a>
Twitter: photoshopcandy
Psd, is now in yer box..
I forgot to mention the most revealing tip of this tutorial (too me that is)
select >modify>contract
Very handy
I can’t tell you how much I use it.
Twitter: photoshopcandy
Hello sir,
Really nice that you are delivering a nivaric visual presentation… but sad fact is most of your pictures is quite not clear… Please do something in this regard…Hope you add me up in your blogroll…Thanks!
PLease excuse – We are having some problems with the bandwidth on the picture server (OVERLOAD OF VIEWERS!)We are working on it now. Thanks for your patience.
Twitter: photoshopcandy
Nice tutorial.
Using a layer style to create the gradient and a stroke on the shape layer might be a little less complicated.
Also using another shape layer, an elipse, and making it a clipping mask over the seal (starburst) shape gives you the flexability of adjusting the highlight. Not sure if this would work for PS7 or below. Anyway, just a thought 
Great Tutorial and Thanks for sharing PDS’s, a good idea. Great way of using tags in your site.
Simple desing but attractive, easy to carry out.
Anyway, I’ll give you some layout and design recommendations for your tutorials:
- Use less text and more images. Text in your site is not so big and could be tricky to read.
- For semantics purposes, Include all your steps in a “ol” “li” order list. I’s like making a recipe.
- An image for each paragraph, a paragraph for each image and a heading “hx” for each image/paragraph item (“li”). It will be easier the reading.
constructive criticism…
Thanks for your blog project!, I’m suscribing to your feeds right now.
Thanks everyone – more to come – looking forward to providing the goods.
Twitter: photoshopcandy
[...] This starbusrst was done with this tutorial. See tutorial here Or for the PSD Click Here [...]
Thanks! Nice and Clean design
Here is my minipulation from that :
http://img226.imageshack.us/img226/6382/graygif250au4.gif
Link here :http://nyilynnseck.blogspot.com/2006/09/nls-starburst-artwork.html
Hey man thanks for the tutorial! i always wondered how u blinged up buttons! 
thanks now i know!
Dude keep up the tutorials!!
South Africa ftw.
Never used photoshop and now im using photoshopCS2 but im stuck mate. wheres the color pallete? and when i choose the colour i wanted at the beginning (dark blue too) the colour didnt change stayed at dark grey! Can someone help? I never used photoshop for nothing and i cant finish one tutorial that i find and this one was the most helpful one till that colour pallete. thank you! plz help
I have again used this numerous times for my keith knutsson website and it again and again amazes me how simple this process is to make my keith knutsson web page look amazing thanks.
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I keith knutsson just love this tutorial. I keep using this techhnique in my keith knutsson webpage. Everyone keeps complementing on how new and clean it looks opposed to the older web 1.0 look, web 2.0 is alive thank you so much. It it will make my Keith Knutsson page even better.
Keith Knutsson
[...] reading Photoshopit’s excellent site seal tutorial, I decided to make one of my own with the addition of a mouse over [...]
Thanks for posting this, i’ve tried it and it works perfectly. I’ll be keeping my eye on this blog for more tips and tricks from you. Thanks again!
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Nice tuto
As a french guy, I need to correct the orthography of the sentence on top of this comments; you shall write :
“Les goûts et les couleurs, on ne discute pas”
and the expression would rather be :
“Des goûts et des couleurs, on ne discute pas”
Anyway, still happy to read some French 
By the way, I do think it’s interesting talking about colors and tastes…
Hi Aaron,
I was trying to follow your tut, but it is possible that a step is missing?
I followed this;
>>>Your starburst contracted selection should still be active do not deselect. – now go create a new layer and place it above the others and select it. NOw name that layer “gloss” ( if your marquee selection for some reason has been deselected than just go to SELECT>RESELECT .)
but I didn’t get a contracted selection at all. The selection stayed the same.
>>>> get the eliptical marquee tool (circular one) and with your one hand holding down on alt and shift – go drag a circle/oval selection partially over the top left area of your star. This should cut out a peice of your selection.
when I held down on alt and shift at the same time, I got a eyedropper tool instead?
I like the tutorial and am almost done, but I could be missing something based on what you described?Thanks again.
[...] tutorial is adapted from PhotoshopCandy’s A Glossy Starburst Tutorial, so all credits of this tutorial go to its creator. What I did was just to create my own [...]
[But hey “les goûtes et les couleurs on ne discut pas” (meaning, one can’t really argue about flavor and color).]
There is a similar quote in hebrew (jewish tradition) but i 4got how it goes exactly. (I wonder if the french version came b4 the hebrew or vice versa?)
Great tutorial, I found it really useful and picked up a couple of tricks that I didn’t know before. Thanks!!
-Dan
Sweet tutorial, just what I have been looking for, alway had trouble with glossy text until now! Well Pleased…
[...] It’s highly effective because it looks utterly insane! And at the same time, it’s freaky because it’s so effective despite the fact that it uses one of the most overused Photoshop creations ever: the starburst. [...]
Bravo! Great tutorial. I don’t really like the shape used in the tutorial but the methodology is excellent! Very well done. Universally applicable.
Thank you ! Great tutorial! I clearly understood although I´m not a native english speaker xD It was very usefull.
good tutorial but i had problems with the “brightness” layer isnt working, i solved the problem making the gradient directly on “base” layer with contract 1px
thnaks anyway..
Great tutorial, In played around a bit with it and got this- http://www.skylanterns2u.com. Any advise on improving it would be great.
J
Great tutorial…
but i have a problem in the last step. if i select the drop shadow effect and lower the opacity to 29-32%..
i can’t see almost anything!!
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I love the design you made! But as I am fairly new to Photoshop, Im lost. You say to create a new layer then got to Select>Modify>Contract but this option is not highlighted for me. Also a previous step you say “With the base layer selected hold down on ctrl and click the square thumbnail on that layer. This will make a marquee selection of the starburst shape.” What is the square thumbnail?
was an article I liked. Thanks for sharing.
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Hey,
I’m not so very fond of the logo you posted before this tut… I find it too complex en detailed to be efficient as a logo. But hey “les goûtes et les couleurs on ne discut pas” (meaning, one can’t really argue about flavor and color).
I liked this tutorial though.. got a few new clips, drags and tips in my fingers now. If I’m not wrong, you didn’t post the psd.. If requested I’d be delighted to post my doing of your tut..
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