Advertising is an important part of any online business, and if your going to delve into the world of banner advertisements you need to learn how to make something that will get visitors to click. Here I will show you some basic techniques in creating professional banners. We will be creating a standard 468x60 banner in this tutorial, so create a new image with those dimensions, and start off by writing the title of your website in bold text toward the left of your canvas

Create a new layer below your text layer, and produce a gradient of light blue-white, as shown below.

Ctrl click your text layer to get a selection of your text. Create a new layer above your text layer, and fill your selection with a light blue to dark blue linear gradient. The lighter of the two blues should start at the top.

Duplicate this layer, and choose Edit > Transform > Flip Vertically. This is going to be our texts' reflection. Move your duplicate layer just below your original text, and use your eraser tool to erase half of the text. If you hold sift while erasing you can erase in a perfect horizontal line. THis will help create an even blend without having to use layer masks. You should have something similar to mine by now.

Create a new layer and make a selection similar to the one below with your polygon lasso tools. Fill your selection with your light blue to dark blue linear gradient. Duplicate your layer and create a dropshadow by blurring the lower of the two with Filter > Blur > Gaussian Blur.

Use your text tool to write something interesting about the product you are providing. To the left, use some bold orange text to write a short important phrase, and in the center use some white text to give you banner a bulk of information.

Ctrl click your orange text layer to make a selection. Create a new layer below your orange text layer. Expand your selection by 2 pixels be choosing Select > Expand > and inputting a value of 2. Fill your selection with your blue gradient, this time make the darker of the two blues start from the top. This create an inlayed effect. Ctrl click your orange text layer again, and create a new layer above your text layer. Fill your selection with a yellow to orange linear gradient.

Next a duplicate my white title text layer, and create a slight inlay effect by changing the bottom of the two layers to a dark blue, and moving the text one pixel upwards and to the left.

Click on the layer that has your large blue gradient. Use your rectangle tool to select the bottom half. Darken your selection by choosing Image > Adjust > Brightness Contrast, and lower the brightness. Next use your light tool to create a pixel line of light below one pixel below were you start you previous selection. If your confused about what I mean, refer to the image below.

This create a very subtle yet pleasing indentation. Next a added a few bulletins of information in my newly darkened portion of the gradient. To make the indented bullets I used to elliptical selection tool to select a small circle, and filled it with our blue linear gradient, making sure that the lighter of the two blues started at the bottom. Here is how mine finished banner turned out!