This tutorial will show you the steps involved in creating Chains and chain links. The creation of chains sounds simple enough, but getting a decent 3D effect can prove to be elusive. This tutorial details a comprehensive method for creating chains and chain links of almost any size.
First, create a new document with a transparent background layer. Use the Elliptical Marquee Tool make a decently-sized circular selection, holding down the SHIFT key as you drag it out so that it keeps equal proportions. Edit --> Fill this circle with a solid black color. Without losing your selection, run Edit --> Copy and Edit --> Paste to duplicate this circle and move it a little to the left so that the two circles are overlapping a little.
The next step is to swap over to the Rectangular Marquee Tool and draw a box connecting the upper and lower edges of the two circles. Edit --> Fill this with black. You should now have a flat oval shape like in my example image to the left.
Merge all your layers together so that you only have one layer containing your new custom shape surrounded by a transparent area. Press down CTRL on your keyboard and click on the layer in the layers palette (with any marquee tool selected), to create a selection around your link shape.
Pick Select --> Transform Selection from the main menu and then, holding down the CTRL+SHIFT keys on your keyboard, resize your selection to something like 75% of its original width, and 58% of its original height. Press DELETE on your keyboard and admire your nice chain link shape.
Lose your selection and invert your link color via Image --> Adjustment --> Invert. We only used black before so that we could see what we were doing. Open up the layer styles dialog via Layer --> Layer Style --> Inner Glow, and enter in the settings on the right. Make sure the link1 layer is selected and hit CTRL+T to transform the shape. Right click in the bounding box and choose perspective. Then move the top of the bounding box inwards until it looks something like my example on the right. Press ENTER on your keyboard to finalize the change when you are happy with it.
Press D on your keyboard to reset your foreground / background colors, and X to swap them around so that black is the new foreground color. Create a new layer on top of your link1 layer and name it shadow. CTRL+click on the link1 layer in the layer palette, grab the Gradient Tool, set a linear transparent-to-black gradient, and drag it across the selection in the new shadow layer. Set the opacity of the layer to around 45%. It’s only an optical illusion, but you should now see a nice shiny link.
Make another copy of the link1 layer called link3 and place it directly beneath link2. Move it a little to the right of link2 so that the inner edges touch. Select the layer and CTRL+click to get a selection, contract the selection by one pixel. Select link2 and make sure you've clicked on the layer mask box rather than the image box and again paint black down the bottom of the link inside the selection. You should end up with a nice link chain like this.
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