Make Glass Zodiac Symbol Icons in Photoshop

Does the clean, classic look of glassy or glossy buttons ever fade? It hasn't so far. They remain some of the most popular buttons and icons available online. Why? Because they work so well with nearly any look, and remain professional.

There are probably as many ways of making glass icons as there are icons out there. Everyone seems to have their own method, and true to human nature, they feel that their method is the best one. I won't claim that this is the best method to creating glass icons, but it is a quick and painless method that works great to set off zodiac symbols.

Before you get going, you'll need to be sure you have two things: A copy of Photoshop (any version from 7.0 through the current CS3 should work, though this guide is written using CS3), and this set of Zodiac brushes. Drop the brushes in your Presets/Brushes folder, or open Photoshop and load them up. These aren't absolutely vital, of course - you can always choose to draw your own - but they will save you some time.

Glass Zodiac Symbol Icons - The Steps

Because we've got the zodiac symbols pre-drawn in the format of a brush, we can save ourselves a lot of hassle. If you would rather use your own images, you'll need to prepare them beforehand so that you can add them into the icons all ready to go. Otherwise, just follow right along and we'll be done in no time.

1. New Canvas: Generally speaking, I'm all about the bigger is better theory when it comes to starting a new graphic. The only problem is that this time we're working with brushes that are pretty small (60 pixels and less in size), so we don't want to start out with a canvas a whole lot larger than those brushes will be able to work with.

Create a new canvas in Photoshop (File, New) that is sized about 150 x 150 pixels. This is still probably much larger than you'll want your icons to end up being - but that's perfect. It's always better to start out at least a little large and work your way down so that you don't lose graphic quality. The canvas should be in RGB mode with a white background.