This technique is extremely useful for creating layouts and other "tech" styles because it gives you a three dimensional "base" for your gauges, etc.

This requires Photoshop 7. Open a new document, 400 x 400, with a white background, default settings.

Go to the Channels tab in the Layers window and create a new channel. It should be named a default Alpha 1 and it should have a black background.

Select the rounded rectangle option from the Rectangle Tool bar. If you don't know how to do this, simply click and hold your mouse down on the button long enough until a small menu pops out.

Apply these settings.

Go to Menu > Filter > Blur > Gaussian Blur, and select it, setting it at 10 pixels.

Then, repeat at 5 pixels, then at 3, then at 1 two times. You should get something like this.

Next, go back to your layers tab, and create a new layer (Ctrl-Shift-N) and apply a white background (if you have default colors, it should be Ctrl-Backspace). Afterwards, go to Menu > Filter > Renderings > Lighting Effects, and apply these settings. Make sure to choose Alpha 1 as your texture channel (remember our Gaussian Blurred channel we created?). How this works is that you set the lighting, and Photoshop chooses a "texture channel". White in this case is "higher" than black. Photoshop renders your texture the way you position your lights, and because when you Gaussian Blurred your Alpha 1 Channel, it gradually changed from a black background to a blurred white rectangle, the render will have a flat background gradually rising to a higher rectangle (foreground).

After all of that, you should get this as your final result.

This is a simply way to do "base" images. It can also be used to create wires (simply Gaussian Blur the white wire outlay), and other shapes. Here's one of my creations for a moderator signature for my forum. Notice that the "base" has a higher ridged edge part and a lower inside part with a polished metal overlay.