Hello again, and welcome to Thursday which means welcome to another Photoshop Tutorial. Today I’ll be showing you a technique that can be used on any shape/text/logo/whateveryouwant to give it that glossy “professional” apple/macish look. The technique can be great if pulled of with the taste and not overused, have fun:

STEP 1: First, we need to create the basic water drop shape. Start with a document that is 500 by 500 pixels in dimension. As for the shape, I like to use the custom shape tool and it just so happens that Photoshop ships with the shape that we want. So select the custom shape tool and drag yourself a water drop out.

STEP 2: Next, double click your teardrop layer to access the layer styles. Apply the following layer styles to the shape. You can also download the style here.

STEP 3: No to finish it up, we need to create the glare. Do this by first creating a new layer, then Ctrl + Click on the water drop shape. Now go to Select->Modify->Contract and enter in 6 for the amount.

STEP 4: Then select the elliptical marquee tool. We want to subtract the bottom area of the drop so you end up with a selection similar to the one I have here. You do this by holding the Alt key and dragging out a cirle in the area that you want to subtract. Try this a few times with the Alt key pressed and you should see what I mean.

STEP 5: Finally, hit D and the X to make white your foreground color. Select the linear gradient tool and use the foreground to transparent option. Drag a gradient in the direction I have shown here and you’re done.

STEP 6: Here is the finsished image.

Well that will do it for another overused photoshop effect, heh. I’m kidding, but please use this tastefully, and have fun, and oh yeah, as always you can email me or go post it in the forums, peace out-

-b