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I'm new to Photoshop and I'm looking for a book which helps me to learn design iOS Apps and user interfaces. I don't look for a book that teaches me about good UI, I'm looking for techniques I can use to make a button look good with Photoshop.

Any recommendations?

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    +1 for @John post. Instead of looking for a book why not look for FREE tutorials. At times it may seem daunting but why spend money when so many talented people out there offer tutorials for free.
    – user9447
    Mar 26, 2013 at 21:19

6 Answers 6

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I would suggest you check out 365psd.com. It is not a book, rather a website with 1000's of free Photoshop built buttons and ui elements. Download any of the PSD files, and you can see how they were put together.

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I found Tapworthy by Josh Clark to be really helpful in understanding why most iOS interfaces have similar attributes.

It goes into detail about measurements, case studies, studies that Apple performed and other intuitive design properties that Apple recommends in their design document.

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The best way?
A designer told me once: Web-Design is not the same as (iOS) App-Design. You haven't the same size of screen, the same kind of action (touch vs mouse, etc). Just adapting a web-site to an iOS App is not recommended. You have to transform it.
Use an iPhone/iPad/iPod Touch. You have to get familiar with the OS (I can't find it, but that's a recommandation from Apple). What's possible, what's not, etc. What does the user expect. Even if there are quite similarities with Android & iOS, Android user won't like app that's designed for iOS-life and iOS user won't like app that's designed for Android-like.
Once you've understood how works Apple Apps (Settings.app, Clock.app, etc.), you may download various apps to understand what can be modified, get ideas, etc. Also, there are plenty of gallery of apps idea, but they aren't always doable.
There are also some guidelines from Apple: https://developer.apple.com/library/ios/documentation/userexperience/conceptual/mobilehig/
You can also get some .psd with the "classical" interface for iOS (buttons, NavBars, etc.) on the web.

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If you want to design great "iOS apps and user interfaces", a book or tutorial on how to use Photoshop better isn't going to help. Great iOS apps aren't great because they have an amazing button effect or stellar pixels. They're amazing because their experiences and workflows are designed well.

Josh Clark's book Tapworthy (as noted above) is a good place to start. I would also suggest Aarron Walter's Designing for Emotion and Dan Saffer's Microinteractions.

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I recommend you this book http://www.amazon.com/Learning-iOS-Design-Programmers-Designers/dp/0321887492. I think it's a great book that will help you a lot. First you need to know what elements contains an iOS design, what is their position in the layout and then you will be able to create what you need.

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I want to suggest you this website to start using photoshop.. You can download a file and see how it works :) http://www.graphicfull.com/

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    Hi user19656, welcome to GDSE and thanks for your contribution. Could you please explain a bit more about what we can find at the link you provided? This way, your answer will still have value in case the link breaks at a later time. Thanks!
    – Vincent
    Feb 6, 2014 at 14:36

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