cs5, making encore menu buttons in photoshop
 

I'm finding the disconnects between the encore and photoshop documentation confusing. Very.

In encore they talk about "layer sets" and making layer sets for menu buttons. Yet in photoshop, this concept of "layer set" doesn't seem to exist. There are ways to group layers together, but I can't find anything that explains how to make a "layer set" in photoshop.

So... what they heck are they talking about?

For that matter, does anyone know of a nice comprehensive tutorial (written, video, book, whatever) that explains how to build a custom menu button in photoshop for encore to use?

It's a hell of a concept for someone who's never done it. It looks like all the documentation will be fine, once I've made a button work. IOW, the docs seem to work fine for reminding you of the details once you already know how to make a menu button. But if you don't already know how to do it, they are, um, less then helpful. For me anyway.

Hi,
A layer set in Encore is basically the same as a bunch of layers grouped together in PS.
A layer set contains several layers which can make up a e.g. button.
To make a custom menu I take a button i like from Encore, bring it into PS and remodel it, give it another color or whatever.
Duplicate it a couple of times, make the menu and bring it back into Encore.
Link assets. Done.

Ain't it always the way -- right after I posted this, I tried my last ditch effort of making a "layer group" in photoshop. I used the encore naming conventions to name the layers inside the layer group. When I imported the menu into encore, it miraculously recognized my new button. It is slick when it works.

So what this is, is a technical documentation bug. The encore docs say "layer set" which is wrong. The correct term is "layer group".

It turns out that photoshop used the term "layer set" way back in v6. I don't know when it went from "set" to "group" but the encore docs have apparently been wrong since that time. No wonder I couldn't figure out what they were talking about!

Sigh... It doesn't have to be this hard. But it is what it is.

That was my intent. I just couldn't figure out how change things like the button subpictures. I'm apparently one of those people who learns best by doing. And Adobe doesn't document for people like me. They explain the hell out of everything, but they don't tell you how to *do* anything. So I set out to build a button, to learn how to modify *their* buttons.

Beating my head against a wall? Yeah, you could look at it that way I guess. Sigh...

Doing it Ann's way (take encore button into PS, modify iy, take back to encore) is the easiest and almost foolproof way of doing it. But once you figure out the basic structure of the button and encore's naming structure, you can build better looking buttons from scratch in PS. I started doing it Ann's way, but now I have a basic template, which is a PSD file, with 1 folder and 3 layers, all named properly, but no images at all (it's the naming that used to screw me up the most). I just open my template, save it as another project and build up my button, then duplicate the folder/group/set.

Ist the same as with a camere. In the manual you will find all the knobs and what they do. But the manual does not tell you how to film.
The best way to learn is by just doing it.
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