I want to share the tutorial how to making an icon with Adobe CS3 (CS4) style. Here, I use Adobe Photoshop CS. But I think you can use older version (Adobe Photoshop 7.0), and absolutely no problem with newer version (CS2 and up).

First, prepare our canvas. Create a new Photoshop document with “square-sized”. Means, the same width and height, according to the Adobe CS3 logo. But you are not restricted. You can make experiment with “non-square-sized” document. Here, I create 400 by 400 pixels.

Add a new layer above the background (actually, we do not need this background layer, you can delete it later), and name it “Base” layer.

Set your foreground colour with #0066CC. I use blue according the Photoshop CS3 colour. Fill the “Base” layer with paint bucket tool. So, you will have a flat blue “Base” layer.

Add a new layer above the “Base” layer, and name it “Shade”. Set foreground colour to white (#FFFFFF), and background colour to black (#000000). Select the gradient tool, and choose radial gradient with “Foreground to Background” colour gradient.

Make a gradient on “Shade” layer from left-top to right-bottom.

Change layer blending of “Shade” layer to “multiply”. Then, set the layer opacity and layer fill to 80%. You can customize this percentage as you like.

Next step is placing the text. Use horizontal text tool to type. I type “Cs”, as “Creative Suite”. I use 250 pt regular Myriad Pro font.

You can use the guide line and the ruler to center the text.

Set your foreground colour to #CCCCFF and background colour to white (#FFFFFF). Or, alternatively you can use #000000/#666666 to make black font as CS4 style instead of older CS3 white font.

Right-click text layer on “Layers” window, and select “Blending Options…”

Tick the “Gradient Overlay”. Then choose “Foreground to Background” gradient. Click “OK”.

And you have done the icon!

Additional step:

You can add the shiny glossy Web 2.0 effect to the icon. Add a new layer, name it “Shine”. You need to make a new gradient preset. With the gradient editor, create 3  opacity stops: 0% at 0% location, 50% at 1% location and 0% at 100% location; and 2 colour stops with white color at 0% and 100% location. Name it “Gloss Shine”, or whatever you like.

With gradient tool, create a new gradient with “Gloss Shine” preset on “Shine” layer, from the centre to left-top corner. Make it about 30 degrees counter clockwise from 12-o-clock.

And it shines…

If you like, you can adjust the “Shine” layer blending options. Set as “Screen” with 50% opacity and 50% fill, as mine, for a guide.

Additional trick to change the colour:

Actually, you can change the colour with just re-filling the “Base” layer with another colour using paint bucket tool. But, you still have to re-adjust the gradient overlay of the text. Fortunately, you can use my trick: add an adjustment layer (Hue Saturation) above the “Base” and text layer.

Then, you can adjust the “Hue” easily as you like to get another colours.

— Adham Somantrie