Slick Blue Navigation Bar In this tutorial I'll show you how to make a slick, blue navigation bar from scratch. This sort of navigation bar would do great on a professional website.

Step 1.

    First thing is create a new document, for this tutorial you can use a document size of 480 x 80 pixels. Fill the background with a nice, light blue color. (#dee6ef)

Step 2.

Create a new layer then get out the Rectangular Marquee Tool, make a set-sized selection of 460 x 32 pixels inside of the document.


Before filling the selection, go to Select > Modify > Smooth in the menu at the top of Photoshop, use an input of about 5 pixels.

Now fill the selection with a dark blue color, I used #4c81c9.

In the blending options for your bar layer, use these settings for the Gradient Overlay.

Step 3.

First create a new layer, now make a selection around the original bar by holding ctrl then clicking the layer's thumbnail.

Once you've made the selection, contract the selection by 1 pixel by going to Select > Modify > Contract and inputting 1.

Get the Gradient Tool out and on the new layer you made, draw a White to Transparent gradient inside of the selection from the top to the bottom.

Now cut the gradient in half, since the bar is 32 pixels in height, I cut off the bottom 16 pixels of the gradient.

Change the layer mode for this layer to Soft Light and lower the opacity if you think it needs it.

Step 4.

Duplicate the shine layer you just created, now make a 1 pixel selection of the top of the shine layer.

Invert the selection (Select > Inverse) then press delete.

Now you have a pretty nifty little highlight at the top.

Step 5.

Lastly, all you need to do is add in text. Start by getting the text tool out and writing your text.

The font I used above is called Tahoma, I used a size of 11 px with no anti-aliasing.
It's not necesary, but just for nice looks, I added this Drop Shadow.

To finish this off, I added a reflection, but if you were using this on a website that probably wouldn't be a very good idea!

If you need the PSD file, you can of course download it from here.

If you would like more help with this tutorial please register and visit the forum.