Faking a CD in Photoshop
March 2, 2007
Let's make a CD! They're fairly easy to create from a blank canvas, because like many things, they're created with mathematical formulas in disguise as gradients and filters.
1) Create a new square document in Photoshop. Mine is 500 x 500 pixels but this will work for any size.
2) Let's hide the parts of the image outside of the CD by masking them away. Go to Layer > Layer Mask > Hide All. Masked areas still contain image information, but it's hidden.
This should hide everything on your canvas and leave you with the checkerboard transparency pattern.
3) Draw a circle that fills the entire canvas. Either fill it with white using the paint bucket, or press shift + backspace and choose to fill with pure white.
Take a look at your layer mask. The parts that are black are hidden, and the parts that are white are not. (This would be reversed if you chose "reveal all" when creating your layer mask.)
4) I've added guides to make it easier to find the middle of my CD. To create guides, make sure your rulers are visible (View > Rulers or crtl + r) Click in the ruler area, hold down the left mouse button, and drag a guide into your canvas.
Draw a smaller circle in the middle of your CD and fill it with black using the paint bucket or by pressing shift + backspace to mask it out.
