Recreate the World from Scratch

1. Begin by setting your foreground color to #0e43b1 and background color to #0a7310. Go to filter>render>clouds.

2. Next go to filter>sketch>note paper. Use these settings. Keep in mind to get the effect which you can see in the next step, the the image balance settings will have a very fine line in which it needs to be set at. In other words, a value of 13 may be too little and a value of 15 may be too much. I found 14 to be perfect.

3. This is what you need to get.

4. Next go to select>color range, use these settings, and select anywhere in the middle of any green part of your document. For the color range preview, white will represent the 'water' and black will represent the 'land'. When you select OK, all your 'land' will be selected with a marquee selection.

5. With the selection still active, go to filter>artistic>sponge and use these settings.

6. This is what you should have.

7. Now go back into color range (select>color range) and select the 'water' portion of the image.

8. With the selection active, go to filter>texture>craquelure and use settings similar to this.

9. Now you have your ocean bottom bumps.

10. Duplicate this layer (Ctrl+J) as shown and turn off visibility mode (the little eye) for both layers.

11. Next create a new layer (Ctrl+Shift+N) on top of your base or background layer and draw a large perfect circle (hold Shift) with the elliptical marquee tool (M) like shown. Fill it with any color, I chose red. This layer will serve as an outline for when we shape our new globe.

12. We now need either one of the water/land layers to be visible. Which ever one you choose, make sure the layer is active and enter transform mode (Ctrl+T) and scale it down (while holding Shift) a little bit like shown.

13. Enter transform mode and right click the middle of the transform box and go to warp. Begin by pulling in the corners to start the shape of the globe.

14. Here is what it should look like just before you apply the transformation. Make sure to utilize the red circle to make sure your globe is a circle. You may choose to give both vertical transform lines a larger outward bulge than what I have shown.

15. Apply the transformation.

16. Now on this layer go to blending options and give it an inner shadow.

17. And an outer glow.

18. Here is what I have given it. If you think the outer glow gives it too much of an 'eclipse' effect simply just lower a opacity a bit.

19. Next create a new layer on top of everything (you can drag the layer to the top if need be) reset your foreground/background colors by hitting 'D'. Go to filter>render clouds.

20. This is what my layers palette looks like.

21. Now we get to use color range again. When selecting a point, select an area of dark clouds, like shown.

22. This is what your selection should look like.

23. Next hit delete on your keyboard to delete the area within the selection and here is what you should get.

24. Next for the cool part. With your cloud layer still active hit Ctrl+Alt+G to make it a clipping layer. Your layer should look like this.

25. And your image should look like this. I then lowered the cloud layer opacity to around 75%. This is what you should get! What is cool is that you can move around the cloud layer until you get a desired cloud effect.

Pretty nifty huh? I hope you like this tutorial.