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I been useing GIMP as my image editor for some time, and this is my first tutorial on it. We are going to make an image like Codefisher Button and Mozillian Button

You will need to adjust the sizes to fit your text, and use your own colors, but the basic princimpes are the same. So start GIMP with a new transparent image, and make it 15x80 you can make it larger, but I would not recommend going any smaller.

Gimp PenOn this image make a border, I going to use #313D59. Skip the corners, as it will make the image look slightly rounded, and not so much like a box. If you press Shift while drawing the lines, you will find it easier to get them straight. In side put an other border, I am going to use white. So you should have something like this, except I have saved it with a blue background so you can see the borders. Example One

Now you need to pick 4 colors, on light, and one darker one for the left side, and another set for the right side. I am going to be useing #345496 #7b96cc and #5d6c90 #96a1b9. We ar going to use them for the two gradients. Gimp Gradient Now once you have two of your colors ready, select the reagion you want to give the gradient with the selection tool Gimp Select , the use the gradient tool to color it, so after one side is done you should have something like Example Two, and once the second is done, something like Example Three

You may want to blur the edge between the two colors, so use the select tool again and select a reagin 2 pixels either side the the join, and go to Filters then Blur then Gaussian Blur. I used a blur radius of 2px and got this Example Four.

Now to give it the "Glossy" look. Make a new layer by going to Layer New Layer, make sure it is Transparent. Select a region that starts 1px in side our colored part. And use the colors #aaaaaa and #000000 to give this a gradient. So you get Example Five. Kind of ugly, but we going to fix that by removing the black, so go to Filters then Colors then Color to Alpha. Set the from color to #000000 (black) and click OK. You should now have something like this Example Six

The next step is easier in you have the Layers window open, so go to Diologs then Layers. While your there press the new layer button Gimp Layer Now back on out image press Text button Gimp Text. I going to be using White, 9px Tahoma. So once you have the set press the image, where you want the top left corner of the text box to be, and type your text, I going to use The Mozillian, a friend of mine's site that I made the template for (though he made the images). You may need t use the drag tool to position the text right, once I had done that I had this Example Seven

Transparent Box I then went to the Layers window, right clicked the the layer that had the text, and pressed Duplicate Layer. Now while you have the lower of the to layers selected tick the little box next to the transparent icon. Now back on our image select the pencil with black get and drag it over image, you will not notice the difference till you use the drag button to move it on 1 pixel down, and 1 pixel to the right. The text, and only the text has changed color. So that gave me this Example Eight

I then blured this in the same way I did above except I used 1px for the blur radius. (if you have a layer selected, it only blurs that layer). You will need to untick the "keep transparent box" though for it to work. Now you should have this, and your done Mozillian Button

You can download the source files (images with all the layers intact) from here and here