Button Highlights/Overlays in Photoshop

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Level 1

5 points

Button Highlights/Overlays in Photoshop

How do I create a simple rectangle highlight around text in Photoshop? I tried creating a rectangle with the rectangle tool. Shape Layers creates an outline (which I can create a thicker stroke), and Fill Pixels creates a rectangle with the option to turn off Anti-Aliasing (as recommended by Larry Jordan, due to DVDSP's inability to read the anti-aliasing on a highlight).

Current PS layers layout:

[layer 1] Background layer (DVD Menu picture), [layer 2] Text layer (button names), [layer 3] Overlay/Button Highlights

Overlay/Button Highlights is the part I'm stuck on. It seems silly to imagine that a simple rectangle would be so hard to make.

When imported into DVD Studio Pro 4:

The Shape Layers version of the rectangle is not readable.
The Fill Pixels version of the rectangle shows as a solid, black rectangle that covers the words

However, both look like the the highlight is AROUND the words within Photoshop. In the Layers Panel in Photoshop, the "Overlay/Button Highlights" Opacity is set to 100% & the Fill is set to 0% (so I can see the words within the rectangle.

MacBook Pro, Mac OS X (10.7.3), Spring 2011 MacBook Pro

Posted on Oct 9, 2012 3:53 PM

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Answer 1

JamaicanBMW Author

Level 1

5 points

Oct 10, 2012 8:38 AM in response to JamaicanBMW

Larry Jordan's e-mail response:

"Brian:

You can't get there from here.

The highlight layer in the DVD totally obscures whatever is below it. So, if you create a rectangle, it will block the text underneath, even if they aren't underneath in Photoshop, the DVD treats the overlay layer as the highest layer in the menu.

So, you need to create rectangles in Photoshop, then cut out the letters in the overlay using masks. Next, you need to be sure that the overlay is solid black with no soft edges - DVDs don't support the edges.

Finally, you will need to rasterize all shapes and text - Layer > Rasterize layer.

Larry"

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