Shiny Orbs

Step 1: Creating the Workspace:

For this tutorial we will be needing a large workspace at first to create the orb in so start by creating a 300 x 300 Document and fill in the background with #333333

Step 2: Creating the effect using a Lens Flare

Then create a lens flare by going to Filter > Render and then Len flare. Apply these settings:

Once you have applied these settings click OK and your document should look like this:

Listen up to the next part because this is where you could go wrong!

Step 3: Messing around with Polar Coordinates

Go to Filter > Distort then go to Polar Coordinates.

And apply these settings:

Click OK and your document should look like this:

Next go to Image > Rotate Canvas and select Rotate 180:

Once you have done this you should up with something like this:

Finally go to Filter > Distort and the choose Polar Coordinates again but this time choose Rectangular to Polar like this:

Click OK and we should now see our Orb shape starting to take form:

Step 4: Cut out the effect

Next we need to cut the orb out of it's current document and then place it into a new one. So Grab your Elliptical Marquee Tool and hold shift and make a selection over it like this:

Once you have a selection that your happy with right click within the selection and select Layer Via Cut. When you do this you should have a new layer in your layers panel like this:

Step 5: Create a new document

Now we're going to create a new document for the layer we have just cut out so create another new document that's 300 x 300 and make the background #333333. Then drag the cutted out layer we have into the new document (that you just created )layer's panel. When you do this your new document should be like this:

You can now close the other document that we were using at the beginning of this tutorial. We now no longer need it.

Step 6: Add some colour

Make sure the Orb layer is selected and then hold Ctrl + Shift + U on the keyboard. This will Desaturate the layer and you should notice a slight colour change on the orb:

Next go to Image > Adjustments and Select Hue/Saturation and apply these settings:

Once done your orb will have some colour in it and should look like this:

Step 7: Add some styles

Finally I'm going to add my own touch to it by adding in a Few Styles!

So right click on the Orb Layer and select Blending Options. You will be apply A Inner Shadow, a Stroke and a Outer Glow setting Here are the settings you need to put in:

Inner Shadow:

Now it should look like this:

Stroke:

And now this:

Outer Glow:

Finally after applying all of those settings the end result should be like this:

Now you can play around with the orb with size or colour etc to get different results. Here's some more I did while making this tutorial:

The Final Result

And there we have it. Using a basic technique with a few added in extras we have a great way of creating a orb(s)!