Creating a Glass Ball tutorial Part I

Step 1 – With the circular marquee tool, create a simple circle in any color.

Step 2 – Give the circle an inner-glow layer effect by changing the glow color to black and changing the blend mode to multiply. Using an inner shadow can result in an angular deflection which is why we use the inner glow method for uniformity.

Step 3 Load the selection from the circular area. On a new layer, drag the linear gradient in white to transparent downward from the top making sure it is close but not entirely at the bottom.

Step 4 – Press Ctrl/Cmd+T to change the white gradient. Drag the handles bringing them up going halfway through, and drag it just a bit inward from the top and sides. Now lets create a merge composite layer. To do this, hide the background, create a new blank layer on top and press Alt+Ctrl+Shift+E or Option+Cmd+Shift+E on Mac, creating a merged layer on top.

Step 5. Take the merged layer and create a circular selection above. the circle should be much larger than the original circle. Again use your eyes to tell you what seems right, then copy the section and paste it in to a new layer. This creates the top portion of the orb. Place it again in the proper exact position.

Step 6) On now to the base of the orb and create an elliptical shape fitting in to the bottom half of the circle in a new layer. Duplicate this layer while reducing the size just a bit.

Step 7. Select the larger ellipse layer and load its selection by pressing Ctrl/Cmd and clicking on the layer thumbnail. Now select the cylindrical gradient tool and going with the grey-white-grey-white-grey color combo, drag across.

Step 8 – Again, duplicate this layer bringing the duplicate upward. Arrange the small white portion to above the actual gradiated layer. Link both of these layers while reducing their size some, to ensure that the outer gradiated ellipse is just within the red circle.

Check back again on Wednesday for Part II

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