Home Photoshop Drawing Techniques Glass Orb

Glass Orb

Author: Netcubo More by this author

Added: Mar 17, 2005 Rating:

Level: Beginner Software: Photoshop

Introduction
Making a nice Glass Orb, might liven things up on either a wallpaper or website. You decide.

Step 1
Make a new document, 500x500. Fill in the background in with a light grey. Make a new layer and select you Elliptical Marquee Tool. Make a fixed size of about 120x120, this will give you nice circle. Fill the circle in this colour #7FC1FF and then go to [Layer > Layer Style > Blending Option]. Right now you should have something that looks like this:

Step 2
We are now going to give it a little stroke, once you've gone through the step [Layer > Layer Style > Blending Option] select stoke. And enter the settings shown below:

Step 3
Why not add a Gradient to it... Select Gradient and enter the details as show below, this will make the orb a little more effective.

Step 4
Now we are going to give it a little effect which makes it look more of a glass orb. Select now, the Bevel and Emboss and enter the settings as shown down below.

Step 5
Making it glow, another nice effect. Select Inner Glow and put in the settings as shown down below.

Step 6
Now to make an outer glow. This is a helpful thing to do. Select the Outer Glow and use the settings show down below.

Step 7
Inner Shadow, this will make it even more effective, select Inner Shadow, and use setting shown below in the image.

Step 8
Now our last finishing touch for our great little orb. Select Drop Shadow and again look at the image, for the settings.

Step 9
Now to make it even realer, we are now going to add a little background to it, making it look like its inside something. In your layers palette hold CTRL on the glass orb, and click it, this will make a whole selection round the orb. Now make a new layer and go to [Select > Modify > Expand > 10] now drag layer below glass orb layer and fill it in with this colour #D4D4D4. Now go to [Layer > Layer Style > Blending Options] then Gardient Overlay, change the settings to these:

You should have something which looks like the image on the right.. You do? Great! Continue..

Step 10
Now to make them little window effects to make it have a nice smooth reflection. Make a new layer and make it like as shown on the left image. Go to [Edit > Free Transform > Skew] and grab the top right one and move it to the right making it strech. Do the same for the left one.

Step 11
Grab you window reflection layer and move in on to the orb. On the layer palette you will see Opacity 100% and Fill 100% change the fill to 8%. You should now have your orb which looks like the image below! You do? GREAT, your finished.