here's how i made die faces for a yahtzee program i am writing using photoshop cs4 ...
1. open photoshop cs4 and create a new image being 70px wide by 70px high.
2. change ruler to use pixels instead of the default of inches.
3. create a grid by dragging guides from the ruler in 10px increments.
4. create layers for background color and for a pip. i chose a compass naming schema for each pip and began with the center.
5. making sure you on on the pip layer you just created, create a circle in one of the grid squares using the elliptical tool in the toolbox. the circle should "snap" right in; however, if you wanna be uber sure the circle is placed perfectly in the square, you may wanna wiggle your cursor cross-hair and line it up with a corner of the grid square. don't worry if the circle looks a bit clunky.
6. create a 2px wide stroke on the outside of the circle
7. let's move on to the background color so we can see what's going on with effects when the time comes. fill the background layer with a color of your choice.
8. staying on the background color layer, let's add layer effects for a round die face. just double click on the layer (not on the layer name) and viola! in the layer effects window, check mark bevel and emboss. by default, contour will also be check marked; however if it is not, check mark it. i set the shading angle to 150 degrees and the shading altitude to 50 degrees. oh, and the style is inner bevel ... everything just as pictured.
9. next, i switched to the pip layer and selected the inside of the circle using the magic wand from the toolbox. then, i filled it with white.
10. it's time for the layer effects for the pip. i added shadowing to the layer.
11. now that the pip layer is complete, i create 8 more duplicate layers. i understand all 8 more were not necessary, but forward looking into making dominoes, i created all compass directional pips :)
12. i then visited each pip layer and nudged the duplicated pip in the layer into the grid square accordingly using the free transform tool in the toolbox.
13. by hiding layers and saving each as a .jpg, i easily created faces for a standard six-sided die for my program!
here are the completed dice ... if you like'em, you may have'em if *and only if* you say the majik words :o) (kudos where you use'em as well)
