Badge 'n Button

We're going to start off with the pill box button. It is a simple rectangle tool with edge of 5px

Now is a great time to get a colour scheme set for the design. I chose blue, and gave the pill box some gradient effects, and stroke.

Adding some more flair to the button. One effect I find to work well in many situations is diagonal line effect. I added a white diagonal line effect to the bottom half where the blue is for the design and lowered the opacity to a comfortable level. This will look something like this:

Feel free to experiment with different opacity settings, colors and try filters like overlay. Remember to always be a beginner ;)

Now for the very popular web 2.0 badge. This is an effective weapon in web design. Use it to express a point that needs to pop-out above the rest of the content. Creating these badges in photoshop CS2 is quite easy. Just select the polygon tool and change the following: