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A Glass Ball Tutorial Made Simple

By: David Peters

Step 1 - With the circular marquee tool, create a simple circle in any color. We will use red in this example.

Step 2) Change the glow color to black and change the blend mode to multiply to give the circle an inner-glow layer effect. The inner glow eliminates an angular deflection creating uniformity and should therefore be used instead of the inner shadow.

Step 3 - Load the selection from the circular area. Drag the linear gradient (white to transparent) downward from the top making sure it is close but not completely at the bottom in a new layer.

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 - For the base of the orb,create an elliptical shape fitting in to the lower half of the circle within a new layer. Duplicate this layer while reducing the size marginally.

Step 7 - Choosing the larger ellipse layer, press Ctrl/Cmd and click on the layer thumbnail to load its selection. Next drag across using the grey-white-grey-white-grey color combination using the cylindrical gradient tool.

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.

Step 9) Select the duplicated gradient layer, now giving it a faintly different gradient of greys and whites. Bring the duplicated gradient layer down, arranging it under both of the other layers. Position it to where it is visible from both sides since it is the rim of the orb.

Step 10) Remove the areas of the orb that are not needed. Keep Ctrl/Cmd pressed and click on the layer thumbnails; first choose the big outer rim ellipse, having the gray gradient, and then Shift+Ctrl/Cmd+Click on the thumbnail of the upper top portion layer. Now the 2 ellipses will be selected, but we need to also select the bottom portion of the orb. Choosing the Rectangular marquee tool, hold down shift and drag over the bottom portion. Inverse the selection (Ctrl/Cmd+Shift+I) and delete the central part of the orb.

Step 11) Let's create the glass portion. Make a circle of the same size of the orb in any color and place it behind the other layers.

Step 12 -As with the first outer orb, give this circle the same inner-glow effect, bringing it forward to cover all but the red outer sections of the orb.

Step 13) Go to the layer palette and make the fill amount =0 to make the layer invisible, but keeps the layer effects visible.

Step 14 -Create a white gradient reflection like in the red circle, in a new layer above the glass layer, to have a more realistic lighting effect. You will have to adjust the settings as needed to make it as realistic looking as possible.

Step 15 -Select the base layers, which are the grey metal gradient layers and the white ellipse, merging them together. Press Cntrl+U to fine-tune the hue of the layer. Since it is at this point grey, click on colorize, and convert to a reddish color to keep with the color of the orb itself.

Step 16. Finally give a very slight drop shadow to the upper portion of the red orb, just to attain more realism. Secondly the lower portion seems off. SO create a new layer above the red lower orb portion. Then select the radial gradient tool, and select the white to nothing option. Now drag from somewhere above the red to a little bit in. Erase portions that arent contained within the red portion. Check Fig.16. to see the effect.

You orb is ready. You can display any items in there now, just make sure any Items kept in have a good reflection added on. This will give the base a shiny appearance.

Article Source: http://www.articlemanual.com

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