In this tutorial I'll try to learn you how to create a software box. Don't shout too much, it'll be my first tutorial here. I hope Sparco won't go crazy at me for using his frog!

Ok, lets begin. The result you could/should have at the end of this tutorial will be anything like this:

Ofcourse you'll be able to see for yourself what dimensions you would like to use etc. Start with a new image, mine was 600x468 pixels. Put your text and image(s) on it, and give it a nice background. Important is to think in advance, leave some space open at the left of your image. My image looked something like this:

Now select all your layers (Shift + Left-click on Windows), and merge them (Right-click + Merge Layers on Windows). Alternate way is to use Ctrl + Shift + E on Windows.    In the Layer menu on the top select 'Flatten Image'. Now you'll have to copy this into a new canvas, it also has to be a bigger canvas then your image. I used a canvas size of 675x543 pixels (That's right, +75 pixels! ). Center your image a bit on the canvas, at this moment, my canvas looks like this:

Now hit Ctrl+R, this will show the rulers. Now pay attention, you might have to experimentate in Photoshop a bit to understand this. Put your mouse on the rulers, hold down left mouse, and drag a line to the image. This way you'll create so called guides. Make your guides something like in this example:

Now select the Rectangular Marquee Tool (Hotkey M), and select the left part of your flat box. If you don't understand, have a look in the next screenshot.   Now hit Ctrl + T (On Windows) for the Free Transform window. If you did it correctly, you'll be able to transform the left side of the box now. Lift the upper-right corner, and the opposite of this corner, the corner down on the left. This is where the guides come in again, lift them as high as the guide. If it doesn't feel good, you'll have to lift them less or more.   If you survived doing this, you'll now have to select the big part of the box. Use Free Transform again to change some corners! The corner on the upper right should be bring down, and the bottom corner on the right should be lift. My result looked like this:

Now you've to get rid of those strange blue lines, the so called guides, again! Hit Ctrl + H to hide them. You're already finished by now. To make things a bit more realistic, it's a good idea to make the left side of the box dark.
I hope you enjoyed my tutorial! If you have got any questions, please ask. The CrystalXP community will be glad to help! I also appreciate if you show me your result, I'll post some examples when I've got time!

Great Tutorial Thanks
Good job !

Thank you!   Next 250 post there will be a new one. Show us your result, I'm sure you'll do fine, even with my tutorial.  

Good jobs !

very nice

Good results

Thanks for sharing this tutorial !

Argh, a french invasion!   Thank you both.   Merci.

Woo, I'm on the box!  Thanks for the write up, I'll be sure to try.

nicee one
try to add some crystalization
since this is CRYSTAL-XP

I'll leave the design of the box itself to you all.
Thank you -PiRK- and Sparco!

Thanks, I will try it ... as a graphic-idiot  

Share with us, your great results.  

Thanks very much for the tutorial Gruzz.

Immediately I tried to make one but I am stuck at one point.

I made the box left size with marquee tool and selected the free transformation tool.

Now when I try to pull the corners up or down, the whole box which was selected by the marquee tool goes up or down and not the corners. (am i explaining myself clearly?)

the image what i have is

Please help.

Just a small correction in your post

Do you mean to say Crtl + R because Ctrl + E merged the layers in my case.  

You're totally right!  

As an answer to your question, you've to make sure to make your selection a bit bigger. Also select the 2 boxes above of your selection, and also the 2 boxes right under the selection. Now you should be able to use Ctrl + T to change only the left side.

Hi Guys,

Can anyone help me Crystallize this box I made.

I will highly appreciate if you can tell me how to do it instead of doing it for me.
Thanks..!

I remember a tutorial about reflections etc. but I can't find it at the moment. Read here and here about reflections. Good to see atleast someone is trying my tutorial.  

Thanks Gruzz.  

No point. Be aware your box looks better on a transparrent background!  

Yup...Thanks for the advice. Will make a new one soon and post my result here.

Good luck with the tutorials, if you need some more support I can help you out  

This is mine   little aliasing and the shadow isn't scale correctly.

And the psd [link] (at box.net 500 Ko)

So nice Bumpy!  

Great job'!

Hey Guys,

I hope you are all doing well. Thanks for directing me to the tutorials.

Before adding crystal effect on the software box I made, I tried make the crystal effect on a square box.

I tried to imitate the square box made by ASHAR at this post
Didnt even come close to the great tutorial but here is what I made...!  

Anyway, I was not able to solve out some things,

1. How to anti alias the box? I see the chunky borders on my box.
2. The elliptical marquee tool was going outside the box to I had to select it again with the  select tool and delete the area going outside the box. Is it the right way to do it?

Thanks.

Edit:
Gruzz, I took your advice to make it on transparent background. Certainly looks better than on white. Thanks  

Edit:
here is the image on black background, to give a better idea where I went wrong. The non sharp corners, and the deleted part of square box to get rid of the white gradient going outside the box. (opps sorry my explanation is not very good)

Can you please give me some ideas to improve.

Sparco, Gruzz, I will appreciate any help..Thanks Guys!  

I need help to create the guide lines. What exactly do I do with the ruler?

Ignore the last post.  I discovered that you can do it with out the guides.

Here is my software box:

What do you think?
(Click to view full size)

I really like it.  The choice of colour is quite good.  If I could recommend one thing though; you need to fix the blur on the animal on the box.

That's it though