Plastic Tab Menus

To start off, we need to create our tab menu button. I used the Rounded Rectangle Tool (often hidden under the Line Tool) with a radius of 10. Then, once I created the rectangle, I cut off the bottom so that only the top part was rounded by using the Rectangular Marquee and hitting delete. Look to the left to see what your tab button should look like.

Ctrl+click (Mac: Command+click) on the layer with the tab button in the Layers Palette to select it. Grab the Rectangular Marquee Tool, hold Alt (Option), and selectthe lower 2/3 of the selection to delete it.

Now, go Select>Modify>Contract, and contract the selection by 1 or 2px. Then, create a new layer above your tab button; call this layer 'Highlight'. Grab the Gradient Tool and choose white as your foreground. Use Foreground to Transparent as your gradient fill (you can set that by clicking the large rectangular gradient near the left corner of the Options Bar. Start a little above you selection and go to the bottom of the selection. Lower the opacity of the layer to about 90 - 95%. You should now have something like this.

Ctrl+click (Command+click) on the layer with the tab button in the Layers Palette to select it. Grab the Rectangular Marquee Tool, hold Alt (Option), and select the top half of selection to delete it. You should have a selection like mine.

Grab the Gradient Tool. Create a new layer and call it 'Shadow'. Select Black as your foreground color. Make sure Foreground to Transparent is your gradient fill style. Start the gradient about 10 - 15px below the selection and go to the top of the selection.

Now lower the opacity of the 'Shadow' layer to about 30 - 40%. You can experiment with this depending on how strong you want the shadow to be. I also used Filter>Blur>Gaussian Blur to blur the shadow layer, using a radius of 2. Next, Ctrl+click (Command+click) the layer with the tab button on it to load it as a selection and hit Shift+Ctrl+I (Shift+Command+I) to inverse the selection. Then, hit Backspace (Delete) to get rid of the excess black on the outside of the button from the blur.

To finish this off, I just created a bar below the button with a hard bevel. (You can make that by filling in a rectangular selection and using the Inner Bevel options on the Blending Options menu or just by using the Pencil Tool to draw in the bevel). I also added some semi-transparent text to the button with a slight inner shadow and a faint shadow for the button (both done from the Blending Options menu). And that's it; not a bad menu, I'd say.