Pluginless Chrome effects

[Nostaw]

hey thanks everyone for your comments!
tutorial.. hmm.. well i did the thing really intuitively, i couldn't recall the exact steps. i'm no good at tutorials but i can tell you the thoughts after watching and reading some of the posts here and after googling this image:

the idea was to seperate 'clearly' the brightness space:
-all fades use dark to mid grey colors
-use highlights (white) to be used as sparely as possible and only around the edges to give it hard contrast to the dull fades
-focus on details around the edges
-keep simple fades inside' on the flat surface' (a bold font for big grey space)

i just started with a grey box and created two fades: a dull grey one used for mainly all the objects and one containing a stripe of white/light grey. scroll to the right of the image in the xar, that's where both fades are placed.

'white' should be sparely used and just around the edges where the light hits. there is a strong light from above (you see the thin white border on top the letters, like a bevel) and dark-mid shades anywhere else. the white bits really define the contour and there are (only) 2 white shapes defining it. take the white shapes away and it looks dull..

the rest is really playing around with fades and shapes cut out from each other.