I thought I would write this tutorial on how to make and save Photoshop Styles. When you first get into Photoshop its really confusing specially if you're coming from PSP... well just think of it like PSP but all the stuff is in diff places..

1. If you're wanting to make some styles using a set of bkg fill patterns.. you must first open each pattern and go to EDIT/ DEFINE Pattern. As shown below... small window will pop up so you can name it. I usually just leave it the same as is.

 ALSO another thing...When you open your PS CS 3 first time.. the workspace is the default one... I use the Legacy workspace.. kind of Norma tweaked lol..

2. On the right side of your workspace you will see WORKSPACE, click the small arrow on the right side of the button.. a drop down window  will appear... Legacy workspace is there.

3.  On the PS default workspace.. it will look like the next two captures below..

Alot of EXTRA things are on there that I don't use much so I click their X's and close them out..

Here is my Right side of the workspace after I Tweaked it.

Below is the default PS styles that come with photoshop...

4. Put your mouse cursor on the bottom style thumbnail as shown below and hold the ALT key down on the keyboard *your cursor should turn into small scissors*...  left mouse click now. and this deletes that style that you pointed to. Do this to all of the styles there that are loaded.... Now this does NOT delete them entirely.. just the loaded ones.. they are still saved in PS files.. If your going to make and save your own style set then you need to JUST have the new ones showing that you  made when you save the style set.. so its just your set of styles that are saved.  *Below the cursor wouldn't do the scissors and me make a capture at same time :) so image the cursor is lil scissors*

OH BTW.. some tutorials on this subject just show you how to save the style right then and they say you can use it over again *its a temporary save really*.. BUT ... they don't show you how to save a set.. and this has happened to me before.. for PS to lock up and me have to close it out... and when I get back to PS.. the styles I made are GONE... POOFFFF... AGH!!!! So learning the hard way I save the set of the ones I made....on the computer the way I show you.. here in min.. THEN you can load them again if you had to close out of PS real quick or loose connection or power.. etc..

5.  ok you should have NO style thumbnails showing now.. Right?

6. On the top right on the style tab you should see the 3 lines.. see below. Click that and a drop down list pops up... IF your going to use someone else's style as a base for your new style.. then Load styles there, go browse for it... *This is how I learned how to make styles... is to use someone else's style and deconstruct it lol see what each item in the Layer Styles window did. Once I learned what they did.. I could just make a style from scratch then.*

7. To open the Layer Styles box you click the FX at the bottom of the palettes.

8. Have you a new image opened... remember a good rule of thumb for photoshop when doing text... you START BIG... like 100pt font make the canvas sized accordingly.  If sometime you would like to 'play' with text.. and styles you will notice the styles look very different if applied on small text and large text. Even using the same font just diff sizing will make the style look totally diff.. so good rule of thumb in photoshop do things BIG... and use 300 dpi on all images. that way they can be resized and still look real good and sharp. OK, below I used a balloon type of font in size 90 I think. for the settings I used this tutorial as the basic settings for this style.. I tweaked it some also..

9.  Below I applied the same style to two different fonts.. as you can see they are totally different... to make the one on the right.. shine like the one on left.. I had to go to the Bevel and emboss and tweak the Shading/Angle and altitude some.

10. When I was happy with the look I SAVED the NEW STYLE, named it..

11. As you save each of your styles the thumbnails are added over under the styles palette as below.

12. For the Header of this page.. I used instead of a color overlay on the layer styles palette.. I used a pattern overlay... with the saved patterns from the beginning. When I get all of my new styles made and you have them on the right... you can yes reuse again BUT will be lost most times.. when PS is closed in a hurry... happens more times than not for me I tell ya... so Click the 3 lines on the top right again.. like I showed you earlier... the drop down box appears choose SAVE STYLES.. this saves all the ones that are showing on the styles palette.. that's why there doesn't need to be any there but yours.. cause what ever is over there and you save.. theirs is going to be saved in your set... so remember to delete all but your new ones..

I hope you enjoyed this tutorial.. and that I have explained this good enough for you to understand... please let me know if you are unclear on something.. I will try to help.

TOODLES till next time

Norma