Please note that this tutorial uses Alien Skin's Eye Candy 4000. You can download a trial version from the Alien Skin website.

Making a Cog Shape

-         You will need a cog shape. You can either download a shape made by someone else, or make your own. To make your own, look for a picture of a cog (or cog shape) by using the image search feature through Google. Choose one that has no drop shadows, and a solid background (image quality and size are not important here- we just need the general shape). For bottle caps, I prefer one with small teeth, but this can easily be adjusted after we make our shape.

-         Once you have the cog image saved to your hard drive, open it in Photoshop.

-         Use the Magic Wand to select the background, then right click and choose 'Select Inverse.' Right click again, and choose 'Make Work Path.' Click 'OK'.

Make Work Path

-         Go to Edit>Define Custom Shape. Name your shape 'cog' and click 'OK.'

-         To save the shape to use again, use the Preset Manager (Edit>Preset Manager). Click on the cog shape, and choose 'save set'. Name the set something descriptive- my shapes, cog, etc.

-         Close the cog picture, and don't worry about saving it.

Making The Basic Bottle Cap

-         Open a new image, 2inx2in 300 DPI. If the rulers aren't already turned on, go to View>Rulers. Drag a guide from each ruler to halfway across the image.

-         Choose the Custom Shape tool. Choose the cog shape that you just made. Draw a cog in the center of the image, so that it fills up most of it (but doesn't touch the edges). Center the image along the guides.

-         Rastersize that shape by going to Layer>Rastersize. Choose the Ellipse Selection tool and while holding the Shift and Alt keys down, draw a circle from the center of the cog, to where you want the teeth to end (I prefer short, shallow teeth).

-         Right click, and choose 'Select Inverse' and then hit Delete on the keyboard.

-         Choose the Ellipse Shape tool. To draw a circle from the center, change the settings by clicking on the upside down triangle beside the blob on the shape menu bar at the top of the screen. Choose 'Circle' and 'From Center'. Then draw a circle in the center of the cog, until the edges barely touch the teeth.

Changing Shape Settings

-         Select the cog shape layer on the layer palette. Run the Eye Candy 4000 Chrome filter on the layer. Use whichever reflection map you like best (I used the Outdoor map), and change the bevel width setting to 3.24 and the bevel height setting to 100, and make sure that the bevel profile is a straight diagonal line (no dots) that goes from the upper left hand corner to the lower right hand corner. Click 'OK'

-         Choose the Circle layer, then go to Layer>Rastersize>Shape.

-         Run the Chrome filter on this layer, using these settings: Bevel width: .02, bevel height: 100, and Outside Marquee. Click 'OK.'

-         Delete the background layer.

-         Now you can save the bottle cap for later use. Save it as a PSD file, with layers intact.

Decorating The Bottle Cap

-         CTRL + Click on the circle layer in the layer palette, and go to Select>Modify>Contract. Contract the selection so that the selection doesn't touch the edges of the bottom circle- I had to contract mine 5 pixels. How many pixels you contract will depend on the size of the bottle cap.

-         Choose a base color for the bottle cap. Use this as the foreground color. Create a new layer, and flood fill the selection in that base color. Deselect.

-         You can decorate the bottle cap however you want- stripes, dots, and so on. Be creative!

-         Age the bottle cap using a combination of the burn tool and the eraser tool. Use a stain brush (many can be found and downloaded on the internet) and the burn tool to 'stain' the bottle cap, and use a rough brush and the eraser tool to 'scuff' up the paint on the bottle cap.

Completed Bottle cap