*level of difficulty* mid -> advanced
Alright so I was convinced to do a tutorial and I'm choosing to do my first on hand-making buttons. Basically depending on the styles of the outfit you will go with a few different steps but there's commonalities. Base shape, somehow to attach to the texture and making it look real but still simple in design. So here goes I'll tell how to make a simple threaded button (kinda like what you see on dress shirts):
For instructional use I'm in Adobe Photoshop CS4 Extended Edition, I will be utilizing basic bevels and the eclipse tool also doing some re-sizing and such a few layers and grouping, ruler tool lines will help greatly (control + r) and the paint bucket, magic wand..
First Step: Open the program and make a new file I work on 1024x1024 and hit enter. Why you ask? Because in the future if I wanted to tweak the button (smiles at that thought) I can easily see the damn thing and manipulate it. Considering I also love detail work 1024 for a button is fine with me but feel free to do what you wish.
Second Step: Make a new layer (control + shift + n) Create a circle using the eclipse tool. Note you can get away with a oval and just use the re-sizing tool (control + T ) The point is to make it look like a circle. *side note* holding down shift will give you a perfect circle every time.
Third: Rasterize the circle. Why? I don't really find a use for it to be a smart object to be honest. Its perfectly fine in a rasterized form.
Forth: Duplicate the layer so you have two circles stacked on top of each other. Then on the top layer go to transform (control + T) and go up to the height and width settings I adjust things to 75% on both and hit enter. Grab the paint bucket and do a different color than the first circle. This is so you can see both circles. Now you can adjust the inner circle to fit your needs.
Fifth: take the magic wand and go up to the top circle click it then go to the bottom circle layer and click delete. That removes the area the circle takes up above it and will come in handy soon.
Sixth: Ok time to get a little technical. You currently should have two circles one with a hole in it and a smaller one covering the hole. Now is the time to use your blending options *side note* you can do this a lot of different ways I will tell you the steps but you will have to experiment with what type of look you want. but for this I will give a look on how mine turns out. I make my inner circle look recessed and the outer circle effectively acts as a lip. With both circles blending options set you will be ready for the next step.
seventh: Ok zoom in on the inner circle. (z key shortcut) what you will be doing now is using the ruler tool lines (to use the rulers lines use the select tool and click on the left or top ruler and it will create a blue line that you can place on your design. Because I am a design order outa chaos type I do the following sets of lines: outside width and height of the inner circle (farthest left, right, up, down point), then half the distance between the Left/right top/down points that is the middle of your button. yes this is a lot of prep work for just a button so bear with me. on the halving lines halve THOSE one more time. You have now just found the center of up to 4 circles.
Eighth: Then you can get rid of the maximum ruler lines to clean up your screen. You can cut out of the top circle using step 4 and then just moving a smaller circle to line up with those centering lines. Using the magic wand tool to effectively cut out circles from the top (which will automatically bevel the openings. When your done with the smaller circle you can delete the smallest circles and bam you have a basic button. With holes for string and stuff and well i wont go into THAT this tutorial.
Wrapping up: For ease of use always save the original PSD. I would go so far as taking all layers grouping them with control + g duplicating the group merging that layer and hiding the original group. Why? You just make a button flattened and can use the original to make variants
