Webbits
Making a gel button with the GIMP
This shows how to make a black gel button using the GIMP. Start off with an image say 200 by 200 pixels, with a transparent background:
Go Select.. Rounded Rectangle, then pour black into the selection:
Then shrink the selection by about 10 pixels. Now we want to get just the top part of this. Use the rectangualr selection, but double-click it and mack sure you have intersection selected:
Then on a new layer do a gradient fill, using a black to white gradient:
Go back to the first layer. Do Select by color and click on the black. Shrink it again by 10 pixels. Then click on the selection transform button, and make it less high.
On a new layer, go Select feather by about 10 pixels. Then pour white into it. Select all, and do a Blur by about 10 pixels. In the Layers dialog, make the layer fairly transparent:
Do the last two steps again, but make the selection a bit smaller, lower and a little brighter
This is what it looks like reduced to 50 X 50 pixels, about the size you'd want for a button
In the next step we use this as the basis of a menu bar. For this, cut the button into three parts, using rectangle select - the left section, the right and a vertical slice up the main bit, and save as three images