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New Canvas

Create a new canvas in Photoshop, roughly the width of your web page (or proposed web page) and roughly 30-35 pixels in height.

Thin Rectangle

Grab your rectangle tool and draw a thin box across the bottom of your canvas. Rasterize the layer (Right-click the layer and choose “Rasterize Layer”)

Rectangle Tab

Once again, get your rectangle tool. Using this shape, draw a “tab” on the canvas. When you have it shaped and sized correctly, choose “Layer, Merge Down” to combine it into the previous layer.

Foreground Color

Choose a foreground color that is different from the one you’ve been using, just to make your life a bit easier for the next couple of steps. (Click once on your foreground color, and choose from the color palette)

Second Rectangle Tab

Draw another rectangle, this one about 1 pixel away from the sides of the first tab. It should be the same height as the first tab, but can extend below the long rectangle.

Rasterize

Rasterize your new tab (Right-click the layer and choose “Rasterize Layer”).

Duplicate & Position Tabs

Duplicate the new tab several times (Right-click the layer and choose “Duplicate Layer”) and place each of these layers in the same manner.

Arrange Layers

Now, go back to your original tab layer and select it. Holding your left mouse button down, drag this layer to the top of your layer list.

Checkpoint

Your secondary tab bottoms should now be “hidden” behind the original tab, making them perfectly straight.

Background (optional)

Now, go back to your background layer and choose a simple lined fill pattern to fill the background with. If you can’t find one that you like, you could also use your line-shape tool to draw several light-gray lines across the background.

Gels

Now we get to add the “gel”. Select your original tab layer, and go to your “Styles”. Click the arrow and choose “Mac OSX Gels”. There are a ton of great effects here – choose a colored style of your choice and use it. (Play around with the styles – some are more transparent than others, and may show your secondary tabs).

Secondary Gels

Going through each of your secondary tabs, use a gray/white layer style to finish the tabs. I used the “Mac Inactive Window” button because of its nice transparency to create the tabs below.

Add Text & Experiment

All you have left is to add your text. Try using the Gel Styles for your text, as well – some of the “flat” gels create amazing text effects.

Play around with the different layer styles that you can find everywhere on the Internet. By simply using different layer styles on the tabs I’d already created, I came up with the following navigation tabs in under 5 minutes.