How to change the color of the background used for buttons on the web.

[tommytx]

I am in the dark ages with photoshop 7 but it should do basic stuff like this..
I am trying to change the color of the background used for the buttons, however it is set on a partial invisible background.. it is fully rectangular but shaped so that the visible part is not exactly rectangular. when I tried to change the color, the entire bar including the invisible part chaged color. Can someone help me with this to get on the right path.. I have included the psd and the actual image.. I want to go from black to dark blue #000086

any help in changing the color or giving me tips on how to do it with the psd would be greatly appreciated.

 

[Zeealex]

sorry i'm a little confused here, are you trying to change the background colour or the actual button's colour?

 

[tommytx]

Thank you for your offer to help.. What is in the attachment is the image that is stretched to 100x50 and is the background that the buttons will sit on.. What I want to do is re-color the background to dark blue so that the buttons now site on a blue background bar vice a black one...
I did not have trouble coloring the bar, but my process colored the entire bar including the hidden (transparent) part and gave me a perfectly rectangular blue background... So in other words the transparent part got destroyed so the fancy back ground turned into a dumb rectangular background...
I can live with just coloring the specific image but you know how it is if you teach me to fish... like doing it with the included psd.... etc.....

 

[Zeealex]

¯i see where you are coming from now i've never used PS 7 before, but can you right click on the button layer's Icon and do you have the option to "select pixels"?

if so do that then using a marquee tool, right click anywhere on the image and press "select inverse"make a new layer, fill it with your blue colour and then have a play around. it should then be the colour you want.

otherwise a really easy way of doing it is making a new layer and filling it with your colour and then putting it "under" the button

hope that helped.

 

[tommytx]

Actually what I have is a long background for buttons, it is not buttons... several buttons will use this background.

<quote>right click on the button layer's Icon and do you have the option to "select pixels"?

when Right click on background layer's icon does not expose the option to select pixels.


<quote>right click anywhere on the image and press "select inverse"make a new layer, fill it with your blue

I can right click on the image and click on select all.. then right click and select inverse and it say no pixels selected even though the dotted line surrounds the entire rectangle.

<quote>a really easy way of doing it is making a new layer and filling it with your colour and then putting it "under" the button
when I made a new layer and filled it, it filled the entire rectangle so I no longer have the nicely shaped background.. its just a normal rectangle.. it over wrote the transparent part also.


I have looked at a lot of video's but still have not been able to figure this sucker out....
Thanks for giving it a shot..

 

[Zeealex]

provided my PC boots up okay tomorrow, i'll try and get something done, it sounds like PS7 is missing a fair few things compared to the version i use

 

[ibclare]

Hi tommytx, welcome to PSG.

Ctl/cmd click the thumbnail and you will get a selection of the shape. In your color picker, define the color. Now alt/opt + del and fill the selection. What you will find is that your gradient overlay overrides the color so it doesn't appear to have changed. So reset your gradient overlay, its opacity, color, blend mode, or whatever works for your design. Hope this is what you need.